THE  CASE  OF  AMERICAN   DRAMA 


THE  CASE  OF 
AMERICAN  DRAMA 


BY 


THOMAS   H.  DICKINSON 

EDITOR  OF 
"CHIEF  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMATISTS" 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN    COMPANY 


1915 


COPYRIGHT,    1915,   BY  THOMAS   H.   DICKINSON 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  September  1915 


No  man  can  quite  exclude  the  element  of  necessity  from  his 
labor.  No  man  can  quite  emancipate  himself  from  his  age  and 
country,  or  produce  a  model  in  which  the  education,  the  reli 
gion,  the  politics,  usages  and  arts  of  his  time  shall  have  no  share. 
Though  he  were  never  so  original,  never  so  wilful  and  fantastic, 
he  cannot  wipe  out  of  his  work  every  trace  of  the  thoughts 
amidst  which  it  grew.  Now  that  which  is  inevitable  in  the 
work  has  a  higher  charm  than  individual  talent  can  ever  give, 
inasmuch  as  the  artist's  pen  or  chisel  seems  to  have  been  held 
and  guided  by  a  gigantic  hand  to  inscribe  a  line  in  the  history  of 
the  human  race. 

EMERSON. 


330408 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  a  simple  one.  In  refer 
ring  dramatic  art  back  to  the  principle  from  which  all 
art  springs,  it  is  expected  to  show  the  manner  by  which 
an  American  dramatic  art  may  arise. 

In  these  days  of  the  collapse  of  the  old  theatre,  and 
the  Babel  of  new  voices,  each  one  advocating  his  own 
panacea  of  reform,  it  is  appropriate  to  pause  for  a  mo 
ment,  even  to  look  backward  over  well-trodden  paths, 
in  order  that  we  may  try  old  principles  in  the  light  of 
new  practice.  The  one  need  of  these  days  is  standards. 
We  have  been  so  much  cut  off  from  the  past  that  the 
rules  of  the  old  order  do  not  satisfy  us.  And  the  new 
regime  has  not  yet  supplied  its  rules.  We  are  all  looking 
forward  somewhat  fearfully  into  the  future,  awaiting 
the  coming  of  events,  and  recognizing  that  we  have 
not  the  standards  by  which  to  judge  the  new  when  it 
arrives.  When  all  other  principles  have  been  tried 
and  have  failed,  or  have  brought  but  a  dubious  suc 
cess,  there  will  remain  one  principle  of  judgment  that 
is  always  sure,  a  principle  which  has  existed  from  the 
beginning,  and  by  the  operation  of  which,  we  may 
believe,  destiny  itself  places  the  stamp  upon  the  works 
of  men.  This  is  the  social  principle.  No  art  can  or  will 
endure  save  as  a  part  of  the  life  of  man.  The  life  of 
man  is  the  necessary  substance  of  the  life  of  art,  and 


viii  PREFACE 

art  draws  its  breath  of  immortality  only  from  man. 
A  living  art  must  be  incorporated  into  the  life  of  man 
and  be  true  to  that  life. 

This  raises  no  question  of  the  artist  versus  society 
and  enforces  no  social  creed.  A  few  years  ago  it  was 
the  drama  of  intellectualism  that  governed.  To-day 
it  is  the  drama  of  sight  and  "style"  that  is  exciting  the 
fervent  bands  of  young  workers.  How  are  the  values 
of  these  and  other  forms  of  drama  (and  by  drama  I 
mean  everything  that  goes  on  in  the  theatre  and  much 
more)  to  be  judged?  Simply  by  the  place  they  take 
in  the  "  general  heart  of  men."  If  they  are  indispen 
sable  to  man's  best  interests  as  these  are  selected 
through  the  sieve  of  time,  they  will  live.  If  they  are 
not  universally  indispensable,  and  therefore  organized 
into  man,  no  joy  of  the  moment,  no  stimulation  of  the 
instant  whim,  no  illumination  of  the  problem  of  the 
hour,  will  save  them  beyond  their  little  day.  In  this 
book  we  are  both  old-fashioned  and  new-fashioned. 
We  would  go  back  to  the  inalienable  principles  of 
dramatic  art  as  these  have  been  worked  out  in  the 
past  in  order  that  we  may  go  forward  to  the  service 
of  a  new  drama  of  a  new  America.  We  would  look 
back  to  sure  principles  in  order  that  we  may  go  forward 
to  true  discoveries.  For  from  these  principles  there 
will  come  standards,  and  from  standards  will  come 
safeguards  and  the  certainties  that  underlie  the  art 
of  a  free  people. 

One  word  of  warning  may  be  permitted.    When  in 


PREFACE  ix 

the  following  pages  reference  is  made  to  the  national 
institution  of  the  theatre  in  America,  it  should  not  be 
thought  that  any  particular  type  of  theatre  is  in  mind. 
This  book  is  not  an  argument  for  the  national  subsi 
dized  theatre,  for  the  endowed  theatre,  or  for  the  ex 
perimental  theatre.  It  is  rather  a  study  of  the  forces 
that  may,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  bring  forth  an  Amer 
ican  theatre  of  a  form  that  will  be  appropriate  to  the 
event.  The  writer  gladly  acknowledges  the  services 
of  his  friend  Mr.  Harold  Gibson  Brown  in  reading 
the  proof  of  the  book. 

THOMAS  H.  DICKINSON. 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  NEW  THEATRE  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY      .  i 

II.  THE  SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMATIC  ART      v       .  51 

III.  THE  PRESENT  SITUATION  OF  THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA  88 

IV.  THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     .      v    '  v      .       .  121 
V.  FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY      .       .       ....  147 

VI.  THE  PROMISE  OF  AN  AMERICAN  DRAMA  .       .  "    .182 


THE  CASE  OF 
AMERICAN  DRAMA 

CHAPTER    J 

THE  NEW  THEATRE  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  HISTORY 

IT  is  difficult  to  do  justice  to  our  own  times.  Some 
thing  over  seven  years  ago  the  New  Theatre  was  first 
announced  to  the  nation.  In  due  time  it  appeared  and 
passed  away.  About  it  from  the  first  was  such  a  buzz 
ing  of  comment  and  criticism,  pointed  and  pointless, 
learned  and  literary,  friendly  and  frankly  malicious, 
that  the  institution  itself  has  been  lost  in  a  cloud  of 
words.  The  general  impression  strangely  left  was  that 
the  New  Theatre  had  been  a  failure.  This  impression 
may  be  ascribed  largely  to  the  often  recurring  charge 
that  the  building  was  too  large  for  its  purpose.  It 
was  strengthened  by  the  early  closing  of  the  experi 
ment.  I  think  the  real  reason  for  the  impression  of 
failure  is  that  so  far  no  one  has  told  what  the  New 
Theatre  really  was. 

Now  in  this  study  of  the  history  and  accomplish 
ments  of  the  New  Theatre  it  will  be  desirable  to  omit 
any  reference  to  the  motives  of  the  founders  or  the 
mistakes  of  the  directors.  Whether  the  former  can  be 
successfully  impugned  it  is  not  necessary  to  ask;  cer- 


2        CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

tainly  the  latter  have  been  unduly  magnified.  To  one 
who  attempts  to  distinguish  the  achievements  of  the 
New  Theatre  from  the  mass  of  debate  by  which  these 
have  been  surrounded,  the  New  Theatre  stands  out  a 
notable  institution,  a  success  by  all  it  stood  for  and 
accomplished,  and  no  less  in  its  apparent  failures 
than  in  its  victories.  According  to  any  demand  that 
the  New  Theatre  should  achieve  the  impossible,  it 
was  indeed  a  failure.  But  by  the  standards  of  reason, 
which  come  from  a  historical  judgment,  it  is  seen 
that  it  accomplished  as  much  as  any  like  institution 
in  the  history  of  drama  has  accomplished  in  a  similar 
time. 

A  comparative  study  of  present  dramatic  conditions 
with  those  of  the  past  reveals  nothing  more  signifi 
cantly  than  the  fact  that  essential  conditions  change 
but  little  from  age  to  age;  that  the  problems  of  one 
century  may  easily  be  stated  in  terms  of  the  problems 
of  other  centuries.  We  have,  therefore,  ready  to  hand 
data  for  the  understanding  of  the  task  laid  before  the 
New  Theatre.  There  is  nothing  unique  in  the  present 
awakened  interest  in  drama.  The  evils  of  the  traveling 
troupe,  which  we  now  think  a  peculiarly  contemporary 
problem,  were  understood  and  corrected  in  Germany 
during  the  third  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Even  theatrical  monopoly  is  no  new  thing,  for  France 
fought  and  overcame  a  theatrical  aristocracy  a  hun 
dred  years  before  Moliere. 

And  the  work  of  the  New  Theatre  was  no  more  and 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  3 

no  less  difficult  than  similar  tasks  undertaken  in  vari 
ous  nations  in  the  past.  The  first  requirement  for  the 
accomplishment  of  such  a  task  is  that  it  be  undertaken 
genuinely  and  thoroughly.  No  halfway  measures  can 
win  any  degree  of  success.  And  no  insistence  upon  im 
proving  the  play,  while  the  player  stands  where  he  is, 
and  audience  and  management  remain  unchanged, 
can  serve  the  purpose.  In  such  an  institution  the  only 
honest  course  is  the  most  difficult  one.  But  even  in 
this  respect  we  get  abundant  light  from  a  study  of  the 
past.  When  France  and  Germany  began  the  recon 
struction  of  their  drama,  interest  in  the  problem  was 
diffused  among  all  classes,  authors,  actors,  critics,  men 
of  affairs,  and  people  at  large.  Such  success  as  was 
secured  came  from  cooperation  of  these  classes.  And 
so  in  England  and  America  to-day,  as  in  France  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  Germany  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  play,  the  actor,  and  the  manager  are  all 
reciprocally  bound  and  their  fortunes  must  rise  or  fall 
together. 

It  may  fairly  be  said  that  the  New  Theatre  repre 
sents  a  substantial  advance  toward  a  national  insti 
tution  of  the  drama  in  America.  Whether  that  insti 
tution  is  to  be  a  single  centralized  institution,  or  is  to 
be  distributed  over  the  country  in  a  variety  of  forms 
and  in  many  centres,  in  the  fashion  of  independent 
local  repertory  theatres,  it  is  clear  that  such  an  insti 
tution  is  necessary,  and  that  it  has  not  as  yet  been 
secured.  In  essaying  once  and  for  all  the  centralized 


4        CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

institution,  the  New  Theatre  did  much  to  clarify 
the  problem  of  the  type  of  institution  we  are  to 
have. 

For  Anglo-Saxon  countries  to-day  the  national  the 
atre  must  be  predicated  on  a  quite  different  theory 
from  that  which  obtained  in  France  and  Germany. 
Both  these  nations  established  their  theatres  by  aristo 
cratic  fiat,  and  both  of  them  incorporated  them  in 
institutions  supported  by  the  state.  Such  a  source 
and  such  a  form  are  inconsistent  with  the  democratic 
principles  of  Anglo-Saxon  peoples.  But  the  difference 
is  more  apparent  than  real.  Whatever  the  source,  the 
national  institution  of  the  theatre  in  Germany  and 
France  has  become  a  democratic  thing.  It  has  kept 
step  with  the  times  because  the  organizers  of  the  state 
theatres  gave  it  an  impetus  to  a  dramatic  art  not  only 
worthy  but  free.  And  as  to  form  the  important  thing 
is,  after  all,  not  so  much  the  source  from  which  the 
theatre  comes  as  the  sanction  that  gives  it  continuing 
life.  Even  a  prince  cannot  command  the  artistic  ap 
proval  of  his  subjects,  and  a  theatre  stood  or  fell  under 
an  aristocracy,  just  as  it  must  do  under  a  democracy, 
through  the  approval  or  disapproval  of  its  patrons. 
The  last  word  in  dramatic  art  must  always  be  with  the 
audience,  whether  that  art  be  subsidized  by  a  court  or 
a  wealthy  man  of  affairs,  or  whether  it  be  dependent 
upon  the  patronage  of  the  people  themselves.  We 
are  likely  to  forget  this,  and  doing  so  to  magnify  the 
differences  between  the  status  of  dramatic  art  in  one 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  5 

country  and  that  in  another.  In  all  essential  respects 
the  conditions  of  being  of  a  national  theatre  to-day  in 
America  are  the  same  as  they  were  in  France  and 
Germany  of  a  century  ago. 

It  is  clear  that  a  national  institution  of  the  theatre 
cannot  be  built  in  a  night  and  a  day.  Its  growth  will 
be  one  of  social  organization  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
artistic  functioning  on  the  other.  In  such  a  process, 
at  best  a  deliberate  one,  an  ounce  of  doing  is  worth  a 
pound  of  theory.  To  this  doing  the  New  Theatre  reso 
lutely  set  itself.  It  is  for  this  reason  appropriate  to 
survey  the  accomplishments  of  the  New  Theatre  in 
the  light  of  the  history  of  similar  movements. 

THE  RECORD  OF  THE  NEW  THEATRE 

Just  at  what  point  the  practical  project  of  the  New 
Theatre  started  it  is  not  necessary  now  to  inquire. 
As  an  artistic  conception  it  was  nursed  in  the  brain  of 
Heinrich  Conried,  a  director  who  had  been  reared  in 
the  old  school  of  drama  and  in  the  school  of  opera. 
Conried  died  before  the  project  was  put  into  execution, 
but  he  left  upon  it  many  marks  of  his  planning.  The 
New  Theatre  opened  in  the  fall  of  1909,  under  the  di 
rectorship  of  Winthrop  Ames.  It  lived  for  two  seasons, 
the  final  announcement  of  the  abandonment  of  the 
experiment  coming  in  the  fall  of  1911.  During  the 
history  of  the  New  Theatre  the  following  things  were 
done : — 

First:  A  building  was  provided,  in  every  way  worthy 


6        CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

architecturally  to  be  the  headquarters  of  an  American 
drama.1 

Second:  A  company  of  players  was  gathered  to 
gether  that  as  nearly  as  possible  represented  the  equi 
librium,  the  diversity,  and  the  stability  of  the  ideal 
stock  company.  The  director  stated  the  purpose  of 
securing  actors  of  versatility,  of  stellar  magnitude, 
of  sympathetic  personality;  in  other  words  a  com 
pany  as  nearly  as  possible  of  the  class  of  the  Lester 
Wallack  and  A.  M.  Palmer  stock  companies  of  by 
gone  days.  In  spite  of  some  mistakes,  he  succeeded 
admirably. 

Third:  The  status  of  the  players  was  raised  well 
above  the  standards  of  commercial  companies  to  a 
place  commensurate  with  the  real  deserts  of  the  pro 
fession.  Players  were  provided  with  sufficient  intervals 
of  rest  to  keep  their  art  vital;  their  roles  were  diversi 
fied  and  they  were  given  increased  responsibility. 

1  In  this  summary  many  matters  of  mere  detailed  criticism  will  be 
avoided  as  not  relevant  to  the  larger  issues.  Much  has  been  made  of 
the  mistakes  in  repertory,  in  casting  of  plays,  and  in  modernization 
of  ancient  masterpieces.  These  criticisms  may  be  just  without  in 
validating  the  principles  upon  which  the  theatre  was  conducted.  The 
matter  of  the  size  of  the  building,  for  instance,  serious  as  it  was,  is 
more  a  matter  of  detail  than  of  principle,  and  should  not  be  permitted 
to  take  too  large  a  place  in  the  consideration  of  the  achievements  of 
the  institution.  Though  one  can  never  be  sure  how  much  the  great 
size  of  the  auditorium  had  to  do  in  starting  the  psychological  current 
against  the  theatre,  it  is  a  safe  presumption  that,  theatrical  condi 
tions  being  what  they  are,  the  first  "new"  theatre  would  hardly  have 
lasted  more  than  two  years  in  any  event.  The  blunder  in  size  seems 
to  have  grown  out  of  the  fact  that  from  the  start  there  was  some  con 
fusion  in  Conried's  purposes  between  imitating  the  Opera  of  Paris  and 
the  Com6die  Francaise.  Of  the  first  Napoleon  had  said  that  it  was  the 
vanity  of  France,  while  the  latter  was  its  glory. 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  7 

Fourth:  A  balanced  repertory  was  selected,  repre 
senting,  as  nearly  as  the  exigencies  of  the  first  sea 
son  would  -permit,  the  claims  of  different  periods  of 
English  drama  and  the  strongest  present  tendencies 
on  the  Continent. 

Fifth:  Substantial  steps  were  taken,  in  the  words 
of  the  director,  "to  avoid  the  artistic  disadvantages  of 
purely  commercial  management,  and  still  to  remain 
self-supporting."  One  of  the  most  important  of  these 
was  the  insistence  upon  frequent  changes  of  bill. 

Sixth:  The  function  of  the  theatre  as  an  instrument 
of  formal  social  culture  was  accepted  in  a  series  of  East 
Side  subscription  performances,  presented  with  all  the 
perfection  of  the  regular  performances,  at  prices  rang 
ing  from  ten  to  fifty  cents.  It  is  said,  that  there  were 
over  forty  thousand  applications  for  tickets  for  the 
first  performance. 

•  Seventh:  The  function  of  formal  education  was  put 
into  practice  in  the  second  season,  in  a  series  of  four 
lectures,  with  histrionic  illustrations,  on  the  develop 
ment  of  the  English  drama,  delivered  by  Professor 
Brander  Matthews,  of  Columbia  University. 

Eighth:  Contemporary  authorship  was  encouraged 
in  the  production  of  plays  that  the  commercial  man 
ager  would  hardly  venture  to  produce;  one  such  play 
was  Sheldon's  "The  Nigger."  The  New  Theatre  pro 
duced  "The  Blue  Bird,"  after  it  had  been  declined  by 
several  managers. 

Ninth:  The  directors  of  the  New  Theatre  recognized 


8        CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

that  a  national  theatre  should  not  be  merely  a  city 
theatre;  that  as  far  as  possible  it  should  distribute  its 
influence.  This  was  done  through  a  spring  tour  which 
took  the  company  as  far  west  as  Chicago,  in  a  typical 
selection  from  its  repertory. 

Tenth:  Recognizing  the  danger  of  monopoly  in  art, 
the  New  Theatre  management  provided  that,  after  a 
play  had  been  held  for  a  certain  length  of  time  in  the 
repertory,  arrangements  should  be  made  for  leasing 
it  out  to  commercial  managers  for  tours  of  the  country. 
Care  was  taken  to  guarantee  that  the  traveling  pro 
duction  should  be  of  equal  standard  with  the  original. 

Eleventh:  Partly  through  necessity, — for  the  reper 
tory  was  hard  to  fill,  —  and  partly  through  principle, 
the  New  Theatre  was  hospitable  to  actors  and  pro 
ductions  wrhich  were  not  a  part  of  the  programme  of 
the  theatre.  Such  hospitality  is  in  the  spirit  of  the 
German  theatres,  and,  discreetly  managed,  can  do 
much  to  encourage  cordial  relationships  among  dif 
ferent  theatres. 

Ignoring,  as  we  justly  may,  isolated  mistakes  in  ad 
ministration  and  neglecting  also  the  charge  of  snob 
bishness  that  was  early  brought  against  the  theatre, 
we  have  in  these  eleven  counts  a  respectable  catalogue 
of  experiment  and  achievement.  Let  us  now,  for  the 
purpose  of  a  more  constructive  criticism,  look  at  the 
history  and  principles  of  similar  institutions  in  other 
lands. 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  9 

THE   COMEDIE  FRANCAISE 

The  Comedie  Franchise  of  Paris  was  the  product 
of  monarchy.  It  is  one  of  the  few  institutions  of  the 
kingdom  of  France  which  have  withstood  the  shocks 
of  revolution  and  have  maintained  their  integrity 
under  the  Republic.  Its  history  and  methods  of  work 
can  for  our  purposes  be  compressed  into  a  few  words. 
The  Comedie  Frangaise  was  established  by  act  of 
Louis  XIV  in  1680,  through  the  union  of  the  three 
Paris  companies :  Moliere's  company,  called  the  King's 
Company,  which  had  been  established  at  the  Palais 
Royal;  the  company  of  the  Marais  Theatre;  and  the 
company  of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne,  called  the  Royal 
Company.  Of  these  the  first  and  second  had  been  in 
combination  since  the  death  of  Moliere  in  1673,  and 
the  rivalry  between  the  combined  companies  and  the 
company  of  the  Hotel  de  Bourgogne  was  only  ended 
by  the  establishment  by  royal  decree  of  the  Comedie 
Frangaise. 

Upon  the  establishment  of  the  new  company,  the 
system  of  control  which  had  existed  under  Moliere 
and  which  had  been  common  both  in  England  and 
France  was  continued  in  the  new  company;  that  is, 
the  actors  were  given  practical,  responsible  control  of 
the  fortunes  of  the  theatre,  subject  to  the  royal  pre 
rogative  as  represented  by  the  director.  Such  a  con 
dition  has  persisted  to  this  day,  outliving  all  revolu 
tions  and  adapting  itself  to  the  republican  as  to  the 


io      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

monarchical  regime.  The  institution  is  now  practi 
cally  governed  under  the  democratic  system,  worked 
out  by  Moliere  in  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  The  modern 
regulations,  based  closely  on  the  ancient  law,  date  back 
to  the  famous  Edict  of  Moscow  of  1812,  signed  by 
Napoleon  and  modified  in  unimportant  particulars  in 
1850  and  1859. 

Sarcey  has  said  that  the  control  of  the  Comedie 
Franchise  is  in  the  hands  of  a  system  part  monarchical 
and  part  democratic.  The  democracy  is  represented  by 
the  actors,  who  in  a  body  of  twenty-four  control  the 
inner  conduct  of  the  theatre.  These  societaires,  acting 
sometimes  through  committees  and  sometimes  by  au 
thority  delegated  to  a  single  person,  select  the  plays, 
engage  the  associates,  produce  new  plays  and  rehearse 
old  ones,  and  share  the  profits  of  the  theatre.  All  these 
activities  are  carried  forward  under  an  administrator, 
who  typifies  the  monarchical  side  of  the  government 
of  the  Comedie.  The  societaires  control  the  internal 
management  of  the  theatre.  The  administrator,  who 
is  responsible  to  the  Minister  of  Fine  Arts,  represents 
on  his  side  the  Government  of  France  in  relation  with 
the  institution.  The  position  of  the  administrator- 
general  is  an  exceedingly  delicate  one,  for  the  reason 
that  the  line  between  the  internal  and  external  admin 
istration  cannot  be  rigidly  drawn.  Experiment  has 
shown  that  the  conduct  of  the  Comedie  usually  reflects 
for  any  given  time  the  character  and  force  of  the  ad 
ministrator.  Success  in  this  position  is  gained  through 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  n 

meeting  and  reconciling  the  critical  opinion  of  the 
societaires  and  the  public. 

An  interesting  feature  of  this  dual  system  of  gov 
ernment  is  pointed  out  by  Sarcey.  It  has  been  found 
that  the  democratic  arm  of  the  organization,  repre 
sented  by  the  actors,  enforces  the  claims  of  tradition 
and  conservatism.  The  monarchical  part  of  the  organi 
zation,  on  the  other  hand,  represented  by  the  adminis 
trator,  is  the  radical  and  innovating  arm. 

What,  now,  are  the  characteristic  features  of  the 
Comedie  Franchise  that  demand  consideration? 

First:  It  represents  the  state  as  pledged  to  the  sup 
port  of  the  best  dramatic  art.  The  Comedie  Franchise 
is  a  standing  charge  on  the  nation  to  the  amount  of 
240,000  francs  a  year.  In  addition,  the  nation  provides 
the  building  and  its  museums,  libraries  and  facilities 
free  to  the  comedians.  The  reserve  funds  supply 
ample  guaranties  for  pensions.  No  profits  can  accrue 
to  the  Government,  but  all  surplus  is  divided  among 
the  societaires,  according  to  the  value  of  the  share 
held;  or  is  placed  in  the  reserve  funds.  In  the  year 
1906  the  expenses  of  the  Comedie  Frangaise  exceeded 
1,600,000  francs.  In  France,  therefore,  dramatic  art 
is  recognized  in  the  same  way  that  education  is  recog 
nized  in  America;  that  is,  as  a  thing  meriting  financial 
support.  This  support  is  not  a  gratuity;  in  return  for 
it,  the  Comedie  is  expected  to  serve  the  nation  in  the 
different  ways  to  be  indicated  hereafter. 

Second:  The  Comedie  Franchise  is  the  great  mother 


12      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

of  the  drama  in  France.  It  is  the  institution  which 
conserves  in  integrity  the  dramatic  traditions  of  the 
nation  from  the  time  of  Moliere  and  Corneille  and 
Racine  onwards.  It  provides  and  perpetuates  the 
standard  by  which  everything  in  authorship  and  act 
ing  is  judged.  Nine  out  of  ten  of  the  great  authors 
have  sooner  or  later  found  a  place  in  the  Comedie 
Franchise.  Not  quick  to  accept  the  new  thing,  it  has 
used  the  Odeon  and  the  Gymnase  Dramatique  as 
vestibules  to  its  portals,  and  a  play  which  achieves 
success  elsewhere  is  likely  ere  long  to  be  impressed  into 
the  programme  of  the  Comedie.  It  has  also  monopo 
lized  the  services  of  the  greatest  actors.  With  it  have 
been  associated  with  few  exceptions  the  greatest  figures 
in  the  history  of  the  French  stage  in  two  centuries. 

In  a  strict  sense  the  Comedie  has  been  a  monopoly 
theatre.  High  as  it  stands  as  a  monument  of  French 
drama  and  great  as  have  been  its  services  to  the  na 
tion,  its  prosperity  has  been  gained  somewhat  at  the 
expense  of  the  tributary  theatres  of  Paris  and  the  pro 
vinces.  In  its  case  centralization  of  art  has  gone  so 
far  that  distribution  has  suffered.  The  performance 
of  some  of  the  classics  outside  of  the  Comedie  Fran- 
gaise  is  contrary  to  tradition.  Outside  plays  and  actors 
are  subject  to  continual  command.  The  result  has  been 
that  the  Comedie  Franchise  makes  the  best  show  for 
French  drama  at  the  point  at  which  it  is  most  in  public 
view;  that  while  feeding  the  centre  it  has  impoverished 
the  circumference.  It  is  against  this  condition  that 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  13 

revolt  has  been  made  during  the  last  generation. 
This  revolt  does  not,  however,  invalidate  the  serv 
ices  of  the  institution  in  providing  and  enforcing 
standards. 

Third:  The  Comedie  Franchise  is  to-day  the  chief 
example  of  a  theatre  substantially  controlled  by  its 
actors.  The  increased  responsibility  attached  to  the 
calling  has  conduced  both  to  the  dignity  of  the  actor's 
position  and  to  an  elevated  standard  of  dramatic  art. 
Self-management  of  productions  is  made  possible 
through  the  fact  that  players  are  engaged  to  play 
only  certain  types  of  roles. 

Ordinarily  a  player  can  expect  to  be  assigned  a  role 
only  in  the  class  for  which  he  is  engaged.  It  need  not 
be  said  there  are  positive  disadvantages  in  this  system 
which  the  French  have  not  been  long  in  finding  out. 
There  are  also  some  clear  advantages.  The  first  of 
these  is  in  favor  of  the  actor  to  whom  a  refreshing 
variety  in  roles  is  practically  guaranteed.  No  less  im 
portant  is  the  advantage  to  the  company  as  a  whole. 
In  no  institution  in  Europe  is  there  as  extended  a 
tradition  of  cooperation  as  at  the  Theatre  Frangais. 
As  a  result  this  company  stands  as  a  model  in  the  art 
of  ensemble  acting. 

Fourth:  The  repertory  of  the  Comedie  Franchise  is 
characteristic  of  the  exclusiveness  of  the  French  people. 
Few  foreign  pieces  find  their  way  to  the  stage  of  this 
theatre.  But,  lacking  the  impulses  from  beyond  the 
border,  the  repertory  is  all  the  more  representative 


i4      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

of  the  history  and  traditions  of  the  French  theatre. 
Having  "a  continuity  of  interest  and  a  solidarity  of 
emulation/'  the  societaires  have  been  able  to  main 
tain  the  integrity  of  the  ancients  before  the  attacks 
of  the  moderns.  Between  these  two  there  is  inevitable 
conflict. 

"The  necessity  of  keeping  the  old  repertory  on  the 
boards  side  by  side  with  the  new  plays  is  one  of  the 
glorious  conditions  of  the  Theatre  Frangais  and  at  the 
same  time  it  is  one  of  its  burdens/ 'quotes  Claretie, f rom 
a  report  of  the  administrative  committee  of  April  6, 
1852.  On  the  other  side  is  the  statement  of  Dumas 
pere,  that  "The  first  theatre  in  France  exists  to  keep 
green  the  memory  of  our  old  glories  and  to  bring  into 
relief  our  new  glories,  but  it  cannot  offer  a  channel 
wide  enough  for  the  multitude  of  dramatic  attempts, 
which  are  still  groping  their  way  in  the  night  of  art." 
In  spite  of  the  claims  for  the  conservation  of  the  old, 
there  was  under  Claretie  a  very  strong  tendency  toward 
the  moderns. 

Fifth:  The  art  of  the  stage  is  recognized  by  France 
as  one  worthy  of  formal  instruction.  The  young  actor 
is  not  left  to  the  haphazard  precept  and  example  of 
fellow  players  little  more  expert  than  himself,  but  by 
a  system  of  expert  tuition  is  taught  the  theory  and 
practice  of  his  art.  Education  in  the  art  of  the 
theatre  is  recognized  as  a  charge  upon  the  state.  And 
the  science  of  formal  instruction  in  the  technique  of 
an  art  has  nowhere  gone  higher  than  hi  the  Grand 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  15 

Conservatory  of  Paris.  This  institution  is  recognized 
as  the  stepping-stone  to  opportunity  in  the  theatre. 
Upon  receiving  a  certificate  the  graduate  is  sure  of  a 
position,  and  the  graduate  of  first  rank  is  permitted  to 
appear  on  the  stage  of  the  Theatre  Frangais.  The  sig 
nificant  thing  is  that  this  institution  is  supported  by 
the  state.  Following  the  example  of  the  nation,  some 
of  the  larger  cities  have  their  city  conservatories  which 
open  to  the  city  theatre,  as  the  Grand  Conservatory 
opens  to  the  Comedie. 

Sixth:  In  supporting  the  Comedie,  France  demands 
a  direct  and  formal  recompense  in  return.  The  indirect 
return  is  always  there;  in  addition  there  are  formal 
benefits  that  the  Comedie  can  pay.  The  museums  and 
libraries  of  the  historic  institution  are  open  to  the 
student  of  French  dramatic  history.  The  obligations 
of  the  Comedie  as  a  formal  social  instrument  in  the 
drama  are  fulfilled  through  the  official  performances 
for  students  and  state  employees.  During  a  year  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  gratis  admissions  are 
distributed.  As  an  arm  of  the  state,  the  Comedie  is 
expected  to  be  discreet  in  its  alliances,  and  enemies  of 
the  established  social  order  can  find  no  outlet  on  its 
stage. 

.  Seventh:  The  great  outstanding  institution  of  the 
Theatre  Franc,  ais  undoubtedly  exacts  the  price  of  ma 
jesty  from  the  nation.  But  if  it  demands  tribute  it  also 
serves  as  a  model.  In  its  train  there  have  sprung  up 
in  the  cities  of  France  city  theatres,  subsidized  by  the 


1 6      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 


city  as  the  Comedie  Franchise  is  supported  by  the 
nation,  and  serving  the  higher  standards  of  the  com 
munity  as  the  Comedie  serves  the  higher  standards 
of  the  nation.  All  the  way  down  to  the  city  which 
supplies  a  subvention  of  about  eight  thousand  dollars 
a  year,  each  city  recognizes  its  obligation  toward  dra 
matic  art.  And  the  provinces  are  not  left  without  the 
stimulating  touch  of  the  larger  institution,  for,  through 
the  summer  tours  of  the  company,  the  art  of  Paris  is 
taken  even  to  the  outlying  provinces  of  the  republic. 
If  during  the  last  thirty  years  a  way  has  been  made 
for  "  free"  theatres  that  can  work  in  zones  untouched 
by  the  theatres  of  tradition,  this  fact  must  be  credited 
to  the  stable  support  of  the  best  in  taste  through 
many  years  by  the  Comedie  Francaise. 

THE  SUBSIDIZED   THEATRES  OF  GERMANY 

The  awakening  in  dramatic  art  in  Germany  during 
the  eighteenth  century  is  strikingly  similar  to  the 
awakening  that  is  now  taking  place  in  English-speak 
ing  nations.  So  saying,  one  is  aware  that  there  is  a 
very  great  difference  between  the  material  prosperity 
of  the  drama  of  the  two  nations  at  these  times.  Drama 
to-day  is  a  very  profitable  business,  but  so  far  as  the 
art  is  concerned,  this  prosperity  is,  or  lately  has  been, 
more  apparent  than  real.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
art,  drama  in  Germany  of  the  eighteenth  century  was 
as  sterile  as  was  drama  in  England  in  the  nineteenth 
century. 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  17 

It  was  not  until  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  that  the  tide  began  to  turn.  Up  to  that  time 
there  were  only  three  dramatic  companies  of  any 
standing  in  all  the  states  of  Germany.  For  the  rest, 
drama  was  produced  by  traveling  troupes  of  poorly 
paid  actors,  playing  in  poorly  appointed  theatres. 
The  art  of  acting  was  at  a  low  ebb.  There  were  two 
or  three  great  actors,  but  there  was  no  pretense  of 
ensemble  acting.  No  German  Garrick  had  yet  appeared 
to  represent  the  principles  of  a  fine  individual  tech 
nique  and  to  organize  a  harmonious  machine  of  well- 
balanced  players.  The  drama  itself  was  artificial  and 
without  soul.  It  had  no  connection  with  current  life, 
with  true  psychology,  or  with  the  German  tempera 
ment.  In  the  seventeen-twenties  a  heroic  effort  had 
been  made  by  Gottsched  and  Frau  Neuber,  directors 
of  the  Leipzig  troupe  of  actors,  to  raise  the  standards 
as  regards  actors,  plays,  and  productions.  The  result 
was  thoroughly  to  bind  Germany  to  the  influence 
of  France.  Paris  became  the  capital  of  German 
drama  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  it  was  later  to 
be  the  capital  of  the  English  drama. 

Such  were  the  conditions  when  the  Hamburg  Na 
tional  Theatre  was  established  in  the  seventh  decade 
of  the  century.  Thereafter  the  movement  rapidly  ad 
vanced  until,  by  the  beginning  of  the  new  century, 
the  whole  body  of  German  drama  had  been  changed 
once  and  for  all.  In  this  thirty  years'  renascence  the 
names  of  many  men,  actors,  visionaries,  and  authors 


1 8      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

are  met  again  and  again,  sometimes  associated  with 
one  theatre  and  sometimes  with  another.  With  the  ill- 
fated  Hamburg  National  Theatre  of  1767,  there  are 
associated  particularly  four  names,  given  in  ascending 
order  of  genius:  Seyler,  Lowen,  Eckhof,  and  Lessing. 
The  first  was  a  well-to-do  and  stage-struck  merchant, 
who  happened  to  be  first  the  chosen  lover  and  later 
the  husband  of  a  popular  but  capricious  actress,  Frau 
Hensel,  whose  varying  fortunes  led  him  into  many 
ventures.  The  second  was  a  literary  amateur  of  the 
stage  whose  visions  went  beyond  his  judgment.  The 
third  was  one  of  the  first  of  the  great  actors  of  the 
modern  epoch  of  German  drama,  and  the  last  was  a 
preeminent  philosopher,  dramatist,  and  critic  of  art. 

Before  the  opening  of  the  Hamburg  National  The 
atre,  Lowen  had  published  a  volume  of  "  Theatrical 
Writings"  for  stage  reform,  in  which  he  had  outlined 
many  improvements  that  were  finally  put  into  effect. 
In  his  new  order  were  to  be :  — 

Stationary  troupes. 

Fixed  theatres  in  great  cities  supported  by  the  state. 

Theatrical  academies  for  the  training  of  players. 

Encouragement  of  original  authorship. 

The  Hamburg  National  Theatre  was  established 
under  Lowen  by  twelve  Hamburg  merchants,  of  whom 
Seyler  was  the  leader.  Its  life  was  short.  Lowen  was 
inefficient  as  a  director,  and  dissension  among  the  actors 
soon  brought  the  experiment  to  a  conclusion.  But  the 
venture  secured  a  long  life  in  history  in  a  manner  little 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  19 

expected  at  that  time.  At  the  opening  of  the  theatre, 
Lessing,  who  then  "  stood  idle  in  the  marketplace,"  was 
asked  to  serve  as  stage  poet  for  the  theatre.  Upon  his 
refusal  to  do  this,  he  was  engaged  to  write  its  criticisms 
and  notices.  In  this  one  thing  the  directors  builded 
better  than  they  knew.  A  theatre  that  is  to  fill  an  ad 
vanced  place  in  the  art  of  drama  needs  not  only  to 
supply  good  plays,  but  also  to  supply  to  the  people  the 
criteria  by  which  elevated  art  is  to  be  judged.  Lessing 
wrote  sedulously  on  drama  for  a  year,  criticizing  each 
piece  that  was  produced,  studying  its  artistic  and  social 
and  national  implications,  and  working  out  the  cri 
teria  of  a  new,  though  admittedly  German,  art  of  the 
stage.  These  "flying  leaves"  of  his  criticism,  when 
gathered  together,  formed  that  "  Hamburg  Drama 
turgy"  which  is  the  foundation  of  the  modern  German 
stage,  and  is  the  best  expression  of  modern  philosoph 
ical  thought  on  the  drama. 

The  Hamburg  National  Theatre  failed  miserably, 
but,  as  in  the  case  of  many  failures,  success  rose  out 
of  its  ashes.  Lessing  had  always  been  larger  than  the 
movement  to  which  he  was  attached,  and  as  author 
of  the  "Laocoon,"  had  already  written  his  name  high 
in  the  lists  of  the  philosophers  of  aesthetics.  And  all 
the  others  who  had  been  associated  with  this  theatre 
went  forth  to  other  theatres  to  try  again,  and  all  played 
their  parts  in  bringing  the  national  drama  of  Germany 
into  being.  Schroder,  who  had  worked  under  Eckhof, 
remained  for  a  time  in  Hamburg  and  created  the  first 


20      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

ensemble  acting  in  Germany,  and,  following  the  slogans 
of  Lessing  against  a  weak  slavery  to  the  French 
classic  drama,  was  the  first  to  open  up  the  German 
stage  to  the  wonders  of  Shakespeare.  Eckhof  went  to 
Gotha  and  by  Duke  Ernest  was  given  charge  of  the  first 
court  theatre.  There  he  spent  the  remainder  of  his  life. 
Even  the  complaisant  Seyler  is  heard  of  again  in  a 
better  venture  than  any  of  these,  the  Mannheim 
Theatre,  established  in  1778  by  the  Elector  Karl 
Theodor,  as  the  first  really  independent  and  therefore 
approximately  " national  theatre."  In  this  venture 
there  were  associated  three  young  actors,  Beil,  Beck, 
and  Iffland,  who  had  served  under  Eckhof  at  Gotha 
and  after  his  death  were  glad  to  put  into  practice  the 
theories  that  they  were  there  unable  to  execute.  With 
this  theatre  there  is  associated  the  name  of  the  great 
Schiller  as  manager  and  author.  Meanwhile,  the 
Vienna  Burg  Theatre  was  reorganized  in  1776,  as  a 
modified  court  theatre;  that  is,  it  was  supported  by 
the  court,  but  its  management  was  left  in  the  hands  of 
the  actors  themselves.  This,  the  system  of  the  Comedie 
Franchise,  was,  after  the  overthrow  of  Seyler,  next 
adopted  by  the  Mannheim  Theatre  also,  and  the  most 
important  step  in  the  elevation  of  the  dignities  of  the 
actor  in  Germany  had  been  taken.  Inland,  one  of  the 
trio  from  Gotha  and  Mannheim,  we  find  later  as  one 
of  the  most  popular  dramatic  authors  of  Germany, 
and  in  1796  the  director  of  the  new  Berlin  Royal 
Playhouse. 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  21 

Thus,  within  thirty  years  the  management  of  Ger 
man  theatres  had  been  revolutionized,  the  player  had 
been  raised  to  a  position  hitherto  unknown,  and  pure 
literature  had  joined  hands  with  the  stage  in  the 
persons  of  such  preeminent  figures  as  Lessing,  Schiller, 
and  Goethe.  The  establishment  of  national  theatres 
in  Germany  was  followed  by  a  wave  of  revolution  in 
all  departments  of  the  theatre.  Goethe  and  Tieck  and 
Immermann  soon  brought  forward  their  ideas  for  scenic 
and  production  reform.  The  movement  thus  begun 
has  continued  for  a  century  and  a  half  with  ever- 
increasing  prosperity. 

Let  us  summarize  briefly  the  conditions  in  Germany 
which  have  been  the  outgrowth  of  the  dramatic  re 
nascence  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

First:  The  drama  is  to-day  recognized  as  a  charge 
upon  the  state  and  upon  the  city.  The  movement 
began  as  a  private  thing  in  Hamburg.  Soon  it  was 
taken  over  by  official  patrons,  and  in  the  nineteenth 
century  municipalities  began  to  provide  their  own 
theatres.  The  court  theatres  are  usually  under  the 
authority  of  a  director  to  whom  is  delegated  complete 
control.  When  the  control  is  kept  in  the  hands  of  a 
prince,  the  result  has  not  been  happy,  as  the  director 
is  much  more  likely  to  be  amenable  to  the  artistic 
demands  of  the  patrons  than  is  a  prince.  From  this 
point  of  view,  the  municipal  theatres  have  latterly  been 
of  better  artistic  service  to  Germany  than  have  the 
court  theatres,  for  reasons  connected  with  the  popular 


22      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

control  which  are  not  far  to  seek.  Of  the  court  thea 
tres,  the  Berlin  Royal  Playhouse  has  not  been  con 
spicuous  as  a  leader,  for  perhaps  manifest  reasons. 
Like  the  Comedie  Frangaise  in  Paris  the  court  theatres 
of  Germany  have  nurtured  national  taste  in  matters  of 
the  art  of  the  theatre  to  a  self-supporting  maturity. 
The  results  of  this  have  been  shown  during  the  last 
thirty  years  in  which  the  German  theatre  has  thrown 
off  the  leading  strings  of  protection  and  has  gone  for 
ward  independent  and  self-supporting. 

Second :  The  German  modern  theatre  is  based  upon 
the  theory  of  the  coherency  of  the  arts.  Lessing,  in  his 
"Hamburg  Dramaturgy,"  which  has  been  the  Bible  of 
German  drama  since  his  time,  insists  upon  all  the  social 
and  aesthetic  and  national  connections  of  the  art  of 
drama.  It  has  been  the  fact  that  German  drama  has 
been  on  a  parity  with  other  arts  that  has  kept  the 
stage  alive.  Lessing  himself,  who  stood  for  the  idea  in 
theory,  in  his  own  person  exemplified  it.  He  started 
the  fashion,  and  since  his  day  the  greatest  writers  of 
Germany  have  not  been  ashamed  of  positions  in  the 
great  theatres.  Freytag  and  Spielhagen  and  Heyse 
have  followed  in  the  wake  of  their  greater  predecessors. 
Modern  German  theatres  also  reach  a  hand  to  the 
plastic  arts  and  arts  of  design,  and  in  the  office  of 
regisseur,  or  director  of  scenery,  have  been  found  men 
of  eminence  in  German  art. 

Third:  The  German  theatres  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  among  many  other  forces  then  at  work,  helped 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  23 

to  crystallize  a  national  consciousness.  More  than  this, 
they  found  voices  to  give  that  consciousness  speech. 
Lessing,  in  his  vigorous  epilogue  to  the  "Hamburg 
Dramaturgy,"  expresses  this  prime  necessity  in  any 
art,  the  need  of  a  coherent  national  character.  "  What 
a  simple  idea  to  give  the  Germans  a  national  theatre, 
while  we  Germans  are  as  yet  no  nation !  I  do  not  speak 
of  the  political  constitution,  but  only  of  the  moral 
character.  One  might  also  say:  The  character  of  the 
Germans  is  to  insist  on  having  none  of  their  own." 

The  man  who  wrote  these  lines  was  himself  among 
the  first  to  give  the  Germans  a  dramatic  art  repre 
sentative  of  the  character  of  the  nation.  But  before 
this  could  go  far,  the  lines  of  the  frontier  had  to  be 
drawn,  and  artists  had  to  discover  that,  while  patriot 
ism  may  be  "  the  refuge  of  the  scoundrel,"  it  is  also  the 
breath  in  the  nostrils  of  the  strong  man.  The  author 
of  the  first  "Storm  and  Stress"  play,  Max  Klinger, 
expressed  this  idea:  "Why  model  our  theatre  after 
French  fashion  when  we  are  Germans,  and  as  the 
tinsel  with  which  the  heroes  of  Racine  are  loaded  is  so 
alien  to  our  character?  Why  after  an  English  pattern, 
when  we  are  very  far  from  the  exuberant,  brilliant 
humor  of  this  insular  people?"  When  the  real  awaken 
ing  came,  it  was  German  to  the  core,  and  the  Ger 
mans  discovered  dramatic  art  simultaneously  with  the 
discovery  of  their  national  life. 

Fourth :  In  repertory  the  nineteenth-century  German 
stage  managed  to  secure  a  catholicity  that  is  found  on 


24      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

no  other  stage  in  the  world.  Not  only  are  the  classics 
of  Germany,  Lessing,  Schiller,  Goethe,  Kleist,  given 
full  consideration  along  with  the  prolific  outpourings 
of  modern  talent,  but  the  classics  of  other  nations  find 
permanent  place  on  the  best  stages  of  Germany.  Since 
Schroder  introduced  " Hamlet"  at  Hamburg  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  Shakespeare  has  been  as  often 
produced  in  Germany  as  in  England,  and  from  Ger 
many  have  come  many  renovating  influences  into  the 
Shakespearean  tradition.  The  Spanish  Calderon  is  only 
less  at  home  in  Vienna  than  in  Madrid.  This  hospitality 
extends  to  plays  of  the  newer  order  as  well  as  to  the 
classics.  The  stage  at  Munich  has  been  the  trying-ground 
of  stage  experiment,  and  Ibsen  looked  to  Germany  for 
the  production  of  some  of  his  plays  before  they  were 
produced  in  his  own  country.  Receptiveness  for  the 
new  and  foreign  thing  has  been  the  chief  force  in  keep 
ing  the  German  stage  alive,  along  with  a  vigorous  and 
deep  nationalism,  which,  under  what  provincial  forms 
it  may  manifest  itself,  underlies  the  entirety  of  the  art 
of  German  drama  to-day. 

ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONAL  THEATRE 

This  hasty  review  will  serve  little  purpose  if  it  is 
not  already  apparent  that  its  chief  value  lies  in  what 
it  implies  and  suggests  concerning  American  drama, 
rather  than  in  what  it  expounds  concerning  foreign 
drama.  Diverse  as  are  the  problems  of  the  German  and 
French  stage  from  the  exigencies  of  our  local  condi- 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  25 

tion,  we  can  find  in  the  history  and  methods  of  their 
stages  abundant  material  for  study  and  emulation. 
The  first  thing  that  impresses  one  is  the  fact  that, 
though  the  external  formulas  may  differ,  the  internal 
values  remain  practically  the  same;  that  the  problem 
in  Germany  a  century  and  a  half  ago  was  different 
only  in  insignificant  details  from  the  problem  in 
America  to-day.  There  is  a  lowest  common  denomi 
nator  in  art  and  society  as  well  as  in  arithmetic,  and, 
when  we  reduce  our  problems  to  its  terms,  we  are  more 
than  likely  to  reach  definite  conclusions. 

It  is  clear  from  the  study  we  have  made  of  the  na 
tional  theatres  of  France  and  Germany  that  these  are 
not  planned  to  be  self-supporting.  Whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  whole  question  of  business  in  the  theatre, 
and  this  we  will  take  up  later,  it  is  certain  that  the 
institution  that  is  to  create  the  standards  of  a  na 
tion's  drama  must  be  raised  above  the  necessities  of 
support  from  earnings.  It  should  also  be  clear  that  no 
nation  can  be  expected  to  go  forward  to  free  and  self- 
supported  work  of  a  higher  order  until  standards 
have  been  supplied  in  stability.  This  brings  us  to  the 
question  of  subsidy  and  the  source  from  which  it  is  to 
be  derived. 

As  has  already  been  said,  in  Germany  and  France 
the  national  theatres  were  established  from  above  in 
those  eras  when  such  action  was  more  natural  than  it 
would  be  to-day,  and  they  have  been  bequeathed  from 
an  aristocratic  past  as  charges  on  a  democratic  present. 


26      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

But  it  is  quite  unlikely  that  democratic  England  and 
America  will  be  ready  to  provide  such  institutions  out 
of  their  own  vitals  for  some  years  to  come,  if  indeed 
they  are  ever  ready  to  do  so.  There  is  left,  then,  only 
that  power  which  is,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  the  modern 
equivalent  of  the  possessing  class  of  the  older  order, 
in  other  words,  the  men  of  wealth  of  the  present 
day. 

There  should  be  no  alarm  over  this  situation.  Accord 
ing  to  the  modern  social  philosophy  it  seems  quite 
fitting  that  wealth  should  return  to  society  benefits 
derived.  There  are  reasons  for  believing  that  such  a 
theatre  would  be  established  better  by  private  means 
than  by  the  state.  The  power  of  an  endowment  con 
tinues  long  after  the  special  interests  which  have  pro 
vided  it  have  passed  away.  A  government  must  be 
kept  under  continuing  tribute;  and,  unless  greatly 
safeguarded,  an  institution  so  supported  is  likely  to  find 
much  of  its  power  directed  to  keeping  in  touch  with 
the  temporal  powers  of  politics. 

As  to  danger  of  interference  with  internal  economy 
on  the  part  of  the  supporting  power,  it  makes  little 
difference  whether  the  organizing  power  lies  with  the 
state  or  in  private  hands,  so  long  as  final  judgment  is 
exercised  by  the  patrons.  The  Comedie  Francaise  is 
not  an  expression  of  the  shifting  political  government 
of  France  or  even  of  the  little  group  of  societaires,  but 
of  the  enlightened  patronage  of  the  nation.  In  those 
German  theatres  in  which  autocracy  is  most  rigid, 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  27 

least  has  been  accomplished  for  the  drama  and  for  the 
nation,  and  genuine  popular  support  is  almost  wanting. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  those  theatres  both  in  Germany 
and  France,  in  which  the  director  depends  most 
closely  upon  the  critical  support  of  his  patronage,  as 
distinguished  from  official  support,  the  standards  of 
artistic  attainment  are  said  to  be  the  highest.  The 
source  of  the  subvention  is  of  little  importance  so  long 
as  this  reciprocal  relation  between  patrons  and  direc 
tor  is  maintained. 

The  danger  of  interference  by  men  of  wealth  is  even 
less  than  the  danger  involved  in  the  autocracy  of 
courts.  Absolute  subservience  to  the  donating  power 
would  be  as  impossible  here  as  subservience  to  the 
prince  has  been  shown  to  be  difficult  in  Germany. 
Money  can  start  a  theatre,  but  it  requires  patronage 
to  keep  it  alive.  Any  desire  on  the  part  of  the  wealthy 
benefactors  to  control  art  would  meet  in  America  with 
the  same  unsuccess  as  under  the  autocratic  rule  of 
courts  in  Germany.  The  result  would  be  simply  that 
art  would  fly  to  other  quarters  where  it  could  be 
free. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  how  can  one  depend  upon  the 
support  of  public  patronage  for  an  art  when  public 
taste  is  as  yet  uncultivated?  For  answer  to  this  we 
must  fall  back  upon  a  truism.  The  good  thing  will 
always  find  patronage  among  the  many  if  it  is  sup 
ported  by  the  few  long  enough  to  give  it  a  foothold. 
In  art  as  in  government  the  judgment  of  things  "in 


28      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

the  long  run"  is  a  pretty  safe  one.  What  is  necessary 
in  our  day,  no  less  than  in  other  days,  is  the  providing 
of  that  machinery  whereby  standards  of  art  may  be 
kept  pure.  We  labor  under  no  illusions  with  regard 
to  the  theatre  of  the  Continent.  It  is  faulty  enough. 
It  must  carry  on  a  perpetual  warfare  against  debasing 
forces.  But  at  least  it  has  the  instruments  for  that 
warfare.  These  instruments,  represented  in  the  solid 
continuity  of  tradition  of  an  uncommercial  institu 
tion  we  too  must  secure  in  a  form  appropriate  to  our 
system  of  life.  If  through  the  maintaining  of  the 
standard  a  more  distributed  interest  follows,  and 
with  it  there  arise  the  commercial  instruments  for  the 
serving  of  that  interest,  we  will  be  but  living  over 
again  the  experience  of  France  and  Germany.  For 
the  richest  fruits  of  the  supported  theatres  of  Europe 
have  grown  outside  the  walls  of  these  institutions. 

Standards  must  come  down  from  above.  Any  real 
contribution  to  the  service  of  the  American  theatre 
must  be  quite  unmixed  in  motive.  The  theatre  that 
will  supply  our  standards  will  not  pay  for  itself.  In 
this  respect  the  hopes  of  the  founders  of  the  New 
Theatre  were  doomed  to  disappointment,  as  is  shown 
by  two  different  statements  issued  only  two  years 
apart.  At  the  opening  of  the  theatre,  Director  Ames 
stated  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  house  to  correct 
as  many  of  the  evils  of  commercial  management  as 
possible,  while  still  aiming  to  be  self-supporting.  Two 
years  later,  in  the  semi-official  announcement  of  the 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  29 

abandonment  of  the  first  building,  and  while  the  con- 
tinuancy  of  the  project  was  still  in  mind,  it  was  stated 
that  for  the  future  a  regular  subsidy  would  be  pro 
vided  annually.  This  lesson  is  enforced  by  a  study 
of  the  subsidized  houses  of  Europe.  In  Paris,  Berlin, 
Dresden,  Vienna,  where  the  clientele  is  certainly 
larger  than  in  New  York,  the  peculiar  public  demands 
that  are  laid  upon  the  theatres  make  them  perpetual 
charges  upon  the  state.  Such  an  institution  cannot  be 
expected  to  be  self-supporting.  Indeed,  it  is  almost 
as  much  of  a  contradiction  in  values  to  say  that  a  na 
tional  theatre  should  support  itself  as  to  say  that  the 
opera,  or  the  museum  of  art,  or  even  that  the  uni 
versity  should  be  self-supporting.  It  is  almost  axio 
matic  that  when  one  of  these  institutions  begins  to 
pay  for  itself,  it  is  serving  its  coffers  so  well  that  it 
cannot  afford  to  serve  art.  Wealthy  givers  in  the  future 
should  approach  their  benefactions  in  this  direction 
with  no  misconceptions  and  with  purposes  clear  and 
unmixed. 

Granting  that  drama  should  be  freed  from  the  neces 
sity  of  earning  a  profit,  the  question  arises,  How  shall 
the  theatre  be  organized  that  it  may  be  of  best  social 
service?  The  answers  of  France  and  Germany  to  this 
question  are  somewhat  unlike.  The  first  nation  repre 
sents  the  ideal  of  concentration  of  power  and  influence 
in  the  Comedie  Francaise,  whereas  Germany  repre 
sents  the  distribution  of  the  benefits  of  these  institu 
tions  over  the  empire.  France  better  secures  a  single 


30      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

institution  which  is  the  shining  glory  of  the  nation; 
Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  by  its  system  better  se 
cures  that  variety  of  expression  and  social  contact  that 
are  necessary  for  any  art  that  lies  close  to  the  life  of 
the  people.  Great  as  the  drama  of  France  is,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  drama  is  the  better  handmaiden  in 
Germany.  And  this  lesson  may  well  be  learned  in  Eng 
land  and  America.  Admitting  the  desirability  of  a 
national  theatre,  Henry  Irving  long  ago  pointed  out 
the  greater  need  of  municipal  theatres  in  the  provincial 
cities.  London  and  New  York  are  pretty  certain  to 
provide  some  fare  for  all  tastes.  It  is  in  the  large  cities 
outside  of  these  metropolitan  centres  that  the  lack 
of  a  great  art  of  acting  and  of  great  plays  is  most 
seriously  felt.  The  suggestion  of  Henry  Irving,  which 
was  made  as  a  result  of  long  study  of  the  needs  of  Eng 
lish  drama,  pointed  the  way  in  which  the  first  steps 
for  a  new  system  of  organization  in  England  have  been 
taken.  Not  in  London,  but  in  Manchester,  and  Dub 
lin  and  Birmingham,  the  repertory  theatre  movement 
started.  The  movement  will  undoubtedly  continue 
in  the  way  that  it  has  begun.  Along  with  the  contin 
ued  call  for  a  national  theatre  in  New  York  or  Wash 
ington,  it  is  altogether  necessary  that  there  shall  go 
a  movement  for  city  theatres  in  the  great  provincial 
cities,  Milwaukee,  St.  Louis,  Denver,  if  our  progress 
in  things  dramatic  is  to  be  substantial  and  sound. 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  31 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  ACTOR 

If  we  compare  the  conditions  accompanying  the  pro 
fessions  of  the  stage  in  America  and  on  the  Continent, 
we  discover  that  the  profession  of  the  actor  commands 
much  less  respect  here  than  in  Germany  and  France. 
We  cannot  be  satisfied  to  have  this  fact  explained 
superficially  as  due  to  the  supposed  character  of  the 
men  and  women  who  enter  the  profession.  We  must 
look  for  the  explanation  in  the  conditions  governing  the 
life  and  art  of  players  in  this  country,  and  in  the  de 
based  standards  of  the  art  of  acting,  which  have  grown 
out  of  these  conditions.  Such  a  study  convinces  the 
investigator  that,  of  all  those  who  follow  the  stage,  the 
chief  sufferer  from  present  conditions,  both  personally 
and  in  his  art,  is  the  actor;  and  that  the  most  lament 
able  result  of  the  system  of  management  now  in  vogue 
has  been  to  debase,  and  almost  to  kill,  the  art  of  acting. 

At  this  point  the  present  awakening  to  better  things 
on  the  stage  is  accomplishing  least.  Authors  have 
for  several  years  had  the  stage  well  under  their  con 
trol,  and  all  the  movements  for  the  improvement  of 
the  stage  are  now  beginning  with  the  written  drama. 
This  is  carrying  far  the  progress  of  the  play  as  a  writ 
ten  document.  The  advance  of  play  technique  of 
the  last  two  generations  exceeded  the  advance  in  two 
centuries  before.  Plays  are  read  in  English  in  num 
bers  exceeding  anything  known  since  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  the  publication  of  plays  becomes  greater 


32      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

each  year.  Plays  are  again  taking  their  place  as  liter 
ature  on  the  library  shelves,  and  a  dozen  writers  are 
now  composing  in  English  plays  that  will  stand  scru 
tiny  beside  the  study  lamp.  But  with  this  advance  in 
the  art  of  the  play,  the  art  of  the  player  has  not  been 
permitted  to  go,  and  the  conclusion  is  forced  on  one, 
that  so  far  the  development  has  been  a  one-sided 
development;  that  such  improvement  as  has  taken 
place  has  been  a  literary  thing  rather  than  a  thing  of 
pure  drama.  Kindred  as  it  is  to  literature,  dramatic 
art  is  not  literature.  It  starts,  not  with  the  printed 
page,  but  with  the  expressive  functions  of  the  human 
body.  It  concerns  itself  more  with  the  play  in  execu 
tion  than  it  does  with  the  play  in  formulas  of  word  and 
action.  In  a  word,  a  play  is  not  a  play  until  it  is  pro 
duced;  it  is  its  amenability  to  production  that  makes  it 
a  play,  and  the  art  of  the  player  lies  at  the  very  centre 
of  the  whole  art  of  the  drama.  In  every  era  in  which 
dramatic  art  has  risen  to  high  standards,  the  art  of 
the  player  has  been  vigorous  and  respected. 

The  decline  in  the  art  of  acting  is  to  be  referred  back 
to  the  changes  in  production  involved  in  the  methods 
of  the  commercial  theatre  of  the  last  two  generations. 
In  the  necessary  steps  for  the  elevation  of  the  financial 
status  of  author,  manager,  and  actor,  changes  in  pro 
duction  were  introduced  which  made  impossible  the 
continuance  of  the  old  ideals  of  acting.  With  the  in 
troduction  of  the  system  of  traveling  troupes,  many 
of  the  conditions  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  every  art  were 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  33 

removed  from  the  art  of  the  player.  These  conditions 
are  spiritual  stability,  sufficient  leisure,  and  healthful 
variety  in  work.  None  of  these  things  is  secured  under 
the  present  traveling  system.  Authors  have  benefited 
greatly  through  the  control  they  are  able  to  maintain 
over  all  companies  producing  their  plays,  and  manag 
ers  have  reaped  the  fruit  of  centralization.  Only  the 
player  has  found  no  real  improvement  in  his  position. 
Blinded  by  the  increased  number  of  positions  from  the 
lowest  class  up  to  stellar  rank,  and  misled  by  an  erratic 
system  of  high  salaries,  the  actor  has  supposed  that 
his  position  was  well  enough.  Meanwhile  he  has  been 
gradually  and  surely  losing  his  foothold  in  the  stable 
ranks  of  the  professions. 

One  result  of  the  present  system  of  production  has 
been  to  crowd  the  actor's  profession  with  a  host  of 
young  players  unprepared  by  training  and  study  for 
the  exacting  calls  of  their  art.  These  are  the  actors 
who  crowd  the  offices  of  agents  during  the  winter.  On 
the  side  of  art  the  loss  has  been  considerable.  For  one 
thing,  responsibility  has  been  taken  away  from  the 
actor,  and  turned  over  to  the  author  and  the  business 
man  of  the  theatre.  The  place  that  the  actor  takes  as 
artist  in  the  significant  productive  work  of  the  theatre 
is  now  limited  to  his  own  part.  He  is  not  expected 
to  have  any  interest  in  the  larger  issues  of  the  produc 
tion.  The  result  has  been  that  the  actor  has  become 
an  automaton,  a  kind  of  histrionic  traveling  man. 
Actors  are  year  by  year  taking  a  smaller  part  in  the 


34      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

productive  work  of  the  stage.  The  term  "actor-man 
ager"  has  been  coined  to  apply  to  a  certain  kind  of 
manager,  nowadays  seldom  found;  in  the  old  days  all 
the  managers  were  actors.  It  is  a  good  day  for  an  art 
when  its  business  is  in  the  hands  of  the  artists  them 
selves. 

The  art  of  the  actor  has  lost  in  technical  variety. 
Technique  no  longer  means  even  what  it  meant  a  gen 
eration  ago.  In  some  respects  this  is  good;  in  others,  it 
means  that  we  are  throwing  away  the  accumulated 
profits  of  years  of  experience.  The  average  player  does 
not  receive  as  thorough  and  varied  a  training  as  the 
average  player  secured  under  the  stock  system.  To  be 
an  actor  should  mean  to  be  a  student  of  human  nature, 
with  facile  command  of  all  the  organs  of  expression, 
and  a  soul  flexible  enough  to  adapt  itself  to  varying 
calls.  To-day  it  may  mean  these  things,  happily  does 
in  many  cases,  but  it  may  mean  also  simply  to  belong 
to  a  certain  "  type  "  which  may  be  bodily  transplanted 
to  the  stage.  The  art  of  the  actor  has  suffered  greatly 
through  naturalism,  and  through  the  increasing  use  of 
actor-proof  plays,  which,  composed  to  "play  them 
selves,"  are  practical  admissions  of  the  failing  fortunes 
of  acting.  The  system  of  endless  repetition  of  one  play 
has  much  to  answer  for.  It  has  brought  the  stage  to  such 
a  pass  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  better  a  part  is  for  a 
player's  pocket,  the  worse  it  is  for  his  art.  A  succession 
of  failures  may  be  better  training  than  one  success. 
The  fire  of  creation  soon  leaves  a  part  under  the  dreary 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  35 

load  of  repetition  night  after  night  for  years.  This 
necessity  of  mechanical  repetition  has  been  opposed 
by  the  continental  players  who  have  visited  America. 
Tomasso  Salvini  absolutely  refused  even  to  play  two 
nights  in  succession.  Bernhardt  and  Duse  carefully 
vary  their  bills.  "There  is  nothing  more  detrimental 
to  the  actor/'  writes  Modjeska,  "nothing  more  inju 
rious  to  the  advancement  and  development  of  his  art, 
than  the  constant  shifting  from  one  place  to  the  other, 
and,  what  is  still  worse,  the  run  of  the  same  play  hun 
dreds  of  times,  until  the  actor's  work  becomes  noth 
ing  more  than  a  mechanical  and  weary  reproduction 
of  his  part  night  after  night,  and  his  only  desire  is 
that  it  may  soon  be  over." 

Serious  as  these  conditions  are  when  viewed  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  actor,  they  are  seen  to  be 
doubly  serious  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  their  im 
portance  to  general  stage  conditions.  No  great  art 
of  drama  can  be  built  up  except  on  great  conceptions 
of  playing.  Indeed,  great  drama  was  never  known  to 
exist  except  at  a  period  in  which  the  art  of  the  actor 
was  vital.  Past  movements  for  the  elevation  of  the 
stage  in  other  nations  have  been  pushed  forward  to 
success,  not  so  much  by  the  idealists  and  visionaries 
from  other  arts  as  by  trained  and  expert  players.  Be 
fore  he  was  a  writer  Moliere  was  an  actor.  The  dignity 
of  the  Comedie  Franchise  and  reciprocally  the  dignity 
of  acting  have  been  maintained  by  the  fact  that  actors 
have  been  placed  in  responsible  charge  of  the  institu- 


36      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

tion.  The  reformation  of  German  stage  conditions 
was  brought  about  by  a  handful  of  energetic  players, 
Ackermann,  Eckhof,  Schroder,  and  Iffland. 

If  the  movement  for  a  dramatic  renascence  is  to 
continue,  it  must  proceed  through  a  raised  valuation 
of  acting  as  an  art.  This  is  practically  impossible  of 
achievement  in  the  present  system  of  traveling  com 
panies.  Not  the  least  argument  for  the  repertory 
system  is  that  it  provides  an  excellent  training-school 
for  players.  This  training  is  excellent  in  two  direc 
tions,  both  highly  necessary  in  these  days.  First,  it 
trains  the  individual  actor  in  many  parts,  as  Irving 
had  played  six  hundred  parts  in  the  provinces  before 
he  ventured  to  London.  Second,  in  providing  a  stable 
company,  it  makes  possible  an  ensemble  art,  after  the 
manner  of  the  old  companies  of  Moliere  and  Garrick, 
art  instruments  of  wonderful  precision,  balance,  and 
harmony,  and  of  the  fine  companies  of  the  stock  days 
in  New  York. 

The  endowed  theatre  alone  can  afford  to  take  the 
first  step  in  the  accomplishment  of  these  ends.  This 
step  taken,  other  managers  can  follow.  Another  thing 
that  the  endowed  theatre  can  do  is  to  restore  dignity 
to  the  art  of  acting  by  restoring  responsibility  to  the 
artist.  The  skilled  player  should  no  longer  be  an 
automaton.  He  should  be  a  constructive  artist,  and, 
particularly  in  the  national  theatre,  he  and  his  fel 
lows  should  constitute  the  body  in  which  are  lodged 
the  artistic  traditions  of  the  institution.  Every  effort 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  37 

should  be  made  to  secure  stability  in  the  companies. 
The  players  must  be  bound  together  by  something 
more  than  a  commercial  contract.  Executive  responsi 
bility  will  be  partly  effective  in  securing  solidarity;  the 
position  of  the  institution  as  head  of  the  art  will  also 
have  its  force;  and  what  pride  does  not  accomplish 
may  be  further  supported  by  the  introduction  of  the 
pension  system. 

One  further  thing  is  forcibly  brought  to  mind  in  the 
comparison  of  American  stage  conditions  with  those  of 
Europe.  It  is  the  total  lack  of  systematic  training  of 
the  young  player  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  technique 
of  his  art.  Aside  from  the  efforts  of  two  or  three  ex 
cellent  private  schools,  the  American  player  is  left  to 
the  haphazard  tuition  of  other  actors  and  stage  man 
agers.  They  do  differently  abroad.  It  is  demanded  that 
the  player  at  the  national  or  city  theatre  shall  be  an 
educated  man.  For  this  reason  many  of  the  great  the 
atres  of  Europe  operate  in  connection  with  dramatic 
conservatories. 

The  necessity  of  some  such  trying  ground  and  re 
cruiting  station  for  skilled  young  players  is  now  one 
of  the  most  serious  of  the  problems  of  the  practical 
art  theatre.  Lately  word  has  come  of  the  establish 
ment  of  at  least  two  such  schools  in  Europe,  and  one 
or  more  are  promised  for  America,  established  on  broad 
principles.  Just  what  relation  such  an  institution 
should  have  with  the  hoped-for  national  or  city  theatre 
of  America  cannot  now  be  said.  Perhaps  the  theatre 


38      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

itself  will  grow  out  of  the  school,  as  the  movement 
out  of  which  the  Chicago  Drama  Players  developed 
was  begun  by  a  little  nucleus  of  interested  students, 
who  studied  under  Donald  Robertson  in  a  dramatic 
school  of  Chicago.  Perhaps  the  next  endowed  theatre 
will  provide  a  conservatory  as  a  necessary  adjunct  to 
its  work,  and  will  train  the  best  students  for  places 
on  the  stage  of  the  larger  institution.  The  obligation 
of  the  institute  of  art  to  make  way  for  the  students 
of  the  art  of  the  theatre  has  been  recognized  in  the 
Carnegie  Institute  at  Pittsburgh  in  a  manner  to  give 
promise  of  even  broader  recognition  in  the  future. 

THEORIES  OF  REPERTORY 

An  endowed  theatre  cannot  be  judged  by  the  char 
acter  of  any  single  production.  In  the  same  way  that 
such  a  theatre  must  always  stand  for  the  perfection  and 
balance  of  its  ensemble  acting,  it  must  in  the  construc 
tion  of  its  repertory  strive  for  a  balanced  and  repre 
sentative  ideal.  Of  all  the  problems  facing  such  a 
theatre,  the  problem  of  the  repertory  is  the  one  which 
is  the  most  fraught  with  danger.  And  this  problem  has 
provided  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  conduct  of 
the  subventioned  theatres  of  Europe.  No  acceptable 
formula  for  the  construction  of  a  repertory  has  yet 
been  suggested.  The  problem  is  one  which  varies  with 
the  traditions  of  the  institution  concerned,  with  the 
strength  of  the  catalogue  of  available  national  plays, 
and  with  the  peculiar  demands  of  the  era.  In  France, 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  39 

under  the  dominating  power  of  the  Comedie,  the  prob 
lem  is  reduced  to  the  single  question  of  the  proper  bal 
ance  between  ancient  and  modern  plays.  The  tradi 
tions  of  the  house  are  clear  as  to  the  quality  and  type 
of  play  to  be  accepted,  and  the  drama  of  France  is  so 
rich  in  masterpieces  that  she  need  not  look  beyond 
her  own  borders.  Until  comparatively  recent  times, 
the  main  function  of  the  Comedie  Frangaise  has  been 
to  keep  burning  the  flame  of  the  classic  drama  of 
France.  The  prestige  of  the  institution  has  gone  far 
toward  guaranteeing  this.  Matthew  Arnold,  in  "The 
Literary  Influence  of  Academies,"  has  shown  how  sub 
stantial  has  been  the  influence  exercised  by  formal 
standards  in  structure  and  style.  To  the  French 
Academy  and  to  the  Comedie  Francaise  chiefly  are 
to  be  credited  that  uniformity  of  style  and  dramatic 
norm  which  are  characteristic  of  French  plays.  The 
Comedie  Franchise  will  never  give  up  its  adherence 
to  the  traditions  of  the  classics,  for  upon  this  rock  it 
is  built.  Racine,  Moliere,  and  Musset  still  hold  their 
place  along  with  our  more  popular  contemporaries.  In 
times  past  the  classics  have  had  much  the  better  of  the 
argument,  but  in  these  days  the  claims  of  the  moderns 
are  pressing  close  and  winning  many  battles.  Against 
the  dangers  of  too  great  exclusiveness,  —  for  the  doors 
of  the  Comedie  are  seldom  opened  for  the  foreign 
play,  —  the  only  corrective  comes  in  the  variety  of 
types  presented  in  any  one  week.  In  one  of  the  forty 
weeks  at  this  theatre,  there  may  be  presented,  for  in- 


4o      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

stance,  plays  as  diverse  as  "Les  Precieuses  Ridicules," 
"Ruy  Bias,"  "Les  Deux  Orphelines,"  and  "Le  Duel." 

The  problem  of  the  repertory  in  German  theatres 
is  different  from  that  in  the  theatres  of  France.  In 
stead  of  a  dramatic  tradition  extending  over  three  hun 
dred  years,  Germany  has  a  dramatic  history  of  only 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Lessing,  in  the  preface 
to  the  "Hamburg  Dramaturgy,"  bears  witness  to  the 
difficulty  of  finding  good  plays.  "The  choice  of  the 
play  is  no  trifle,  for  choice  presupposes  quality,  and  if 
masterpieces  should  not  always  be  performed  it  is 
easy  to  perceive  where  the  fault  lies."  Partly  through 
necessity,  and  largely,  it  must  be  admitted,  through 
the  natural  receptiveness  of  the  German  temper,  the 
doors  of  the  great  German  theatres  have  been  thrown 
open  to  the  drama  of  Europe.  German  drama  has 
thrived  on  the  inspirations  of  neighboring  nations. 
For  many  years  Shakespeare  has  occupied  a  place  of 
honor  in  the  Berlin  theatres.  Byron's  "Manfred" 
was  first  produced  in  Munich.  Ibsen  and  Bjornson 
were  welcome  in  Germany  before  they  were  at  home 
in  the  theatres  of  their  own  land.  The  result  has  been 
that  while  French  drama  has  excelled  in  construction 
and  finish,  German  drama  has  excelled  in  social  sig 
nificance  and  versatility.  It  is  clear  that  Germany 
has  made  a  virtue  of  a  necessity. 

An  ideal  theory  of  the  repertory,  constructed  from 
the  practice  of  the  endowed  theatres  of  France  and 
Germany,  would  perhaps  include  four  classes  of  plays: 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  41 

First:  The  acknowledged  classics.  These  may  be 
limited  to  one  nation  or  chosen  from  the  masterpieces 
of  several  nations. 

Second:  Plays  important  in  the  history  of  a  people 
and  of  the  theatre.  These  may  not  be  the  masterpieces, 
but  they  represent  the  "high  places"  in  dramatic  liter 
ature  and,  as  such,  need  to  be  kept  alive.  Examples, 
of  such  plays  are  the  romantic  plays  of  Hugo  and  the 
elder  Dumas  of  France;  though  not  made  for  immor 
tality,  these  plays  are  kept  alive  by  main  strength  at 
the  Comedie  Franchise. 

Third:  Plays  typical  of  the  best  movements  of  the 
contemporary  art  of  the  stage. 

Fourth:  Experimental  plays,  venturing  into  new 
genres,  and  representative  of  a  new  art.  For  such 
plays  there  is  little  room  on  the  stage  of  a  national 
theatre.  Their  place  is  rather  on  the  stage  of  the  ex 
perimental  theatre. 

The  American  repertory  theatre  can  learn  lessons 
from  both  France  and  Germany.  From  France  it  can 
learn  the  vigorous  and  conscious  fostering  of  those 
memorable  plays  which,  under  the  peculiar  commer 
cial  systems  of  production,  have  been  forgotten. 
Methods  of  production  being  what  they  are,  the  ob 
livion  of  popular  forgetfulness  can  hardly  be  counted 
more  an  index  of  lack  of  worth  than  could  the  dust  of 
Melos  which  hid  so  long  the  classic  Venus.  The  director 
of  the  New  Theatre  stated  that  a  classic  play  is  one 
which,  after  a  hundred  years,  is  still  alive  and  wel- 


42      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

come  to  the  public.  This  definition  might  be  just  in 
France,  where  popular  appreciation  has  been  main 
tained  more  nearly  at  a  pitch  of  proper  judgment  than 
in  America.  It  can  hardly  be  considered  just  in 
countries  which,  in  matters  of  dramatic  art,  are  gov 
erned  by  untutored  and  shifting  popular  standards. 
Many  great  English  plays  are  known  only  through  the 
libraries.  Thankless  as  the  task  may  be,  it  must  be 
the  duty  of  a  representative  national  theatre  to  search 
out  the  great  plays  of  the  past  and  place  them  in  the 
position  in  which  they  belong  as  acted  plays.  Shake 
speare  will  always  be  popular  when  he  is  well  acted. 
So  also  will  Sheridan  and  Goldsmith,  but  there  are 
plays  by  Heywood,  by  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  by 
Massinger  and  Etheridge  and  Wycherley  and  Con- 
greve  and  Steele,  that  should  not  be  forgotten  on  our 
stage. 

A  parallel  has  been  drawn  between  the  conditions 
of  German  drama  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  Eng 
lish  drama  to-day.  Like  Germany,  we  too  can  make 
a  virtue  of  a  necessity  and  enrich  our  repertories  with 
the  best  from  foreign  lands.  The  English,  like  the  Ger 
man  genius,  is  alert  to  a  voice  from  beyond  the  borders. 
There  is  no  reason  why  we  too  should  not  have  our 
Moliere  and  our  Beaumarchais,  our  Calderon,  our 
Goldoni,  and  our  Lessing,  along  with  our  Shakespeare 
and  Goldsmith  and  Pinero.  To  us  all  these  are  voices 
speaking  a  language  comprehensible  and  not  too  alien 
for  pleasure  as  well  as  instruction.  For  what  the  Eng- 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  43 

lish  stage  needs  is  the  broadening  of  its  lines,  not  na 
tionally  but  psychologically.  It  needs  the  recognition 
that  the  art  of  drama  is  as  varied  in  its  interpretations 
of  life  as  the  life  that  it  treats;  that  it  is  not  always 
and  everywhere  a  plaything;  that  it  is  a  noble  and 
dignified  art,  which,  while  giving  pleasure,  may  also 
be  studied.  If,  instead  of  going  beyond  the  border  for 
the  claptrap  of  German  farce  and  French  intrigue, 
we  should  import  the  masterpieces  of  these  peoples, 
dramatic  taste  would  be  greatly  improved  in  depth 
and  comprehensiveness. 

THE  NATIONAL  THEATRE  AS  AN  EDUCATIONAL 
FORCE 

Writing  his  preface  to  the  "Hamburg  Dramaturgy," 
Lessing  says,  apropos  of  the  easy  judgments  of  the 
work  of  the  theatre:  "Only  every  little  criticaster 
must  not  deem  himself  the  public,  and  he,  whose  ex 
pectations  have  been  disappointed,  must  make  clear 
to  himself,  in  some  degree,  of  what  nature  his  expecta 
tions  have  been.  For  not  every  amateur  is  a  connois 
seur.  Not  every  one  who  can  feel  the  beauties  of  one 
drama,  the  correct  play  of  one  actor,  can,  on  that  ac 
count,  estimate  the  value  of  all  others.  He  has  no  taste 
who  has  only  a  one-sided  taste;  but  he  is  often  the  more 
partisan.  True  taste  is  general;  it  spreads  over  beau 
ties  of  every  kind,  and  does  not  expect  more  enjoy 
ment  or  delight  from  each  than  its  nature  can  afford." 

It  is  good  that  we  can  go  back  a  hundred  and  fifty 


44      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

years  for  this  admirable  statement  of  a  modern  need. 
For  the  better  drama  cannot  be  brought  about  by  the 
activities  of  the  artist  alone.  When  it  comes,  it  will  come 
as  much  through  the  constructive  and  discriminating 
taste  of  the  critic  as  through  the  efforts  of  the  artist. 
Understanding  of  great  art  comes  either  through  com 
munion  with  the  forms  of  that  art,  or  through  careful 
study  of  the  criteria  underlying  its  expression.  Great 
art  may  have  upon  it  the  marks  of  inevitability,  but 
that  does  not  mean  that  it  must  be  inevitably  under 
stood.  Indeed,  it  is  a  mark  of  much  great  art  that  it 
remains  a  closed  book  until  cultivation  and  instruction 
make  its  symbols  clear.  The  ends  of  this  cultivation 
and  instruction  it  is  the  province  of  criticism  to  serve. 
Criticism  has  the  double  function  of  evaluating  the 
art  and  educating  the  lover  of  art.  While  it  is  point 
ing  out  values,  it  is  cultivating  the  perceptions  of 
values.  The  place  that  criticism  can  play  in  support  of 
the  social  art  of  drama  is  a  large  one.  A  widely  diffused 
constructive  art  of  criticism,  an  art  that  reaches  all 
minds  and  states  absolute  values  in  terms  of  popular 
taste,  is  even  more  necessary  in  the  case  of  drama  than 
of  other  arts,  for  drama  depends  upon  the  suffrage 
of  the  many  for  its  existence.  Excellent  pictures  may 
come  in  answer  to  the  elevated  taste  of  the  few.  Ex 
cellent  drama  cannot  come  to  stay  until  the  taste  of  the 
many  can  support  it. 

A  study  of  dramatic  history  shows  how  closely  the 
expository  art  of  criticism  has  worked  hand  in  hand 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  45 

with  the  theatre  in  formulating  for  popular  judgment 
the  attainments  in  the  art.  We  have  seen  that,  when 
the  founders  of  the  Hamburg  Theatre  launched  their 
experiment,  they  called  to  their  aid  a  great  critic.  More 
was  accomplished  for  German  drama  by  the  fiery  logic 
of  Lessing  than  by  the  bravest  ventures  of  the  experi 
menters.  Dryden,  the  first  of  the  English  modems, 
introducing  a  new  kind  of  play,  defended  it  in  trench 
ant  criticism.  The  beginning  of  the  era  of  modern 
French  drama  with  Moliere  and  Racine  was  accom 
panied  by  the  beginning  of  French  dramatic  criticism. 
With  the  developing  art,  there  came  a  criticism  that 
explained  the  art.  The  place  of  dramatic  criticism  has 
always  been  high  in  France,  because,  there,  criticism 
has  always  been  a  scholarly  and  constructive  thing. 
Criticism  served  to  place  the  refined  and  developed 
art  of  the  Comedie  Franchise  within  reach  of  many 
minds,  and  the  gain  was  a  reciprocal  one.  The  work 
of  Weiss,  Sarcey,  Lemaitre,  Faguet,  Doumic,  has  ac 
companied  the  work  of  the  theatre,  interpreting  the 
theatre  to  the  people  and  preparing  the  people  for 
the  theatre.  Under  such  a  conception  as  this,  criti 
cism  becomes  a  high  and  necessary  art,  for  it  is  an 
art  of  arts,  the  maker  of  standards  and  the  dissem 
inator  of  light.  Lemaitre,  the  brilliant  young  pro 
fessor  of  rhetoric,  who  followed  Weiss  as  critic  of  the 
"Journal  des  Debats,"  reveals  in  his  " Impressions "  a 
completed  aesthetics  of  the  modern  stage.  Sarcey  so 
much  respected  criticism  that  he  declined  all  honors, 


46      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

even  to  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  and  election 
to  the  Academy,  that  he  might  hold  himself  free  for 
the  better  pursuit  of  his  calling. 

These  things  are  full  of  suggestion  for  us.  With  the 
collapse  of  the  theatre  in  England,  dramatic  criticism 
also  failed.  The  nineteenth  century  shows  us  only 
two  examples  of  men  of  acknowledged  standing  in 
other  arts  who  seriously  took  up  dramatic  criticism, 
Hazlitt  and  G.  H.  Lewes.  We  have  had  other  excel 
lent  critics,  but  none  who  has  raised  the  art  of  criti 
cism  to  a  constructive  plane  beside  the  arts  and 
sciences.  The  art  itself  has  been  a  haphazard  thing; 
its  codes  have  been  unformulated  by  the  artists;  the 
public  has  been  quite  in  the  dark  as  to  principles 
of  judgment.  When  good  plays  have  appeared,  they 
have  been  isolated,  because  not  clearly  to  be  placed; 
bad  plays  have  gone  their  way  to  oblivion,  neither 
author  nor  public  knowing  for  the  breaking  of  what 
law  they  had  been  damned. 

No  art  can  succeed  that  is  out  of  reach  of  the  cri 
teria  of  its  patrons.  A  theatre  that  aims  above  the 
reach  of  its  average  patron  must  either  struggle  along, 
building  a  clientele  by  the  slow  method  of  cultiva 
tion;  or  it  must  formally  supply  the  critical  interpre 
tation  of  its  own  efforts.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  what 
the  artist  would  say  to  this  second  proposition.  He 
would  prefer  to  have  his  art  "speak  for  itself."  This 
is  undoubtedly  just  what  the  director  of  the  New 
Theatre  wished  this  theatre  to  do.  Throughout  his 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  47 

conduct  of  the  house,  Winthrop  Ames'  management 
was  a  model  of  poise  and  tact.  He  was  silent  when  a 
word  would  have  put  the  cavilers  to  rout.  But  it  is 
seriously  to  be  questioned  whether  art  should  be  com 
pelled  to  depend  upon  its  own  speech,  where  a  wise 
and  pointed  word  might  save  it  from  long  waiting 
and  misunderstanding.  The  purposes  of  a  national 
theatre  are  not  for  those  who  run  to  read,  and  they 
should  not  be  judged  by  the  snap  judgment  that  makes 
or  mars  the  fortunes  of  commercial  ventures.  For 
such  a  theatre  there  is  need  of  an  authoritative  mouth 
piece  to  voice  the  purposes  of  the  institution,  to  ex 
pound  the  principles  upon  which  it  is  working,  and 
to  evaluate  strictly  the  attainments  of  the  theatre  in 
the  light  of  the  highest  principles  of  art. 

The  art  of  the  theatre  has  changed  radically  in 
the  last  fifty  years,  and  the  rules  of  technique  of  the 
new  drama  are  still  to  be  written.  Artists  are  still 
struggling  for  the  ultimate  in  dramatic  expression, 
through  media  of  speech,  and  silence,  and  action  that 
are  still  unfamiliar  in  their  own  hands.  Naturalism 
has  thrown  away  many  of  the  easy  conventions  of 
the  old  stage,  and  now  that  naturalism  is  working 
its  way  into  other  forms  of  the  symbolism  of  truth, 
artists  are  beginning  to  express  themselves  through 
finer  filaments  of  communication  than  drama  has  been 
accustomed  to  use.  Half  of  the  meaning  of  a  great 
modern  play  is  in  the  unspoken  and  the  unacted.  It 
is  in  the  "overtone,"  as  they  say  of  Ibsen's  plays. 


48      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

While  these  things  are  going  on  in  the  art  of  drama 
and  acting,  audiences  are  continuing  to  learn  their  cri 
teria  of  the  stage  from  the  popular  successes  of  the 
bright  lights.  What  wonder  that  good  plays  mean  to 
them  only  something  incomprehensible  and  annoying? 
The  new  art  should  not  have  to  wait  until  taste  has 
grown  up  to  it.  The  endowed  theatre  will  always  be 
as  much  a  social  institution  as  it  is  an  institution  of 
art.  It  will  owe  it  to  the  people  as  well  as  to  the  art 
that  the  principles  upon  which  its  work  is  done  shall 
be  laid  open  for  those  who  will  to  read. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  national  theatre  should  not 
attempt  more  than  it  is  fitted  to  do.  Many  dramatic 
movements  are  at  work  in  our  social  order  and  these 
should  not  be  confused.  There  are  advanced  theatre 
movements,  free  theatres,  experimental  theatres,  reper 
tory  theatres,  and  many  other  kinds  of  non-commer 
cial  theatres.  All  these  are  valuable.  But  the  national 
theatre  works  on  a  definite  set  of  principles  of  its  own. 
They  are:  that  art  is  stable,  that  there  are  continuing 
values  in  art,  particularly  within  the  limits  of  a  nation 
or  a  race,  and  that  the  role  of  the  sedate  art-lover  is  to 
conserve  that  continuity.  On  this  point  we  have  lost 
in  England  and  America,  not  only  because  we  have 
hesitated  to  make  experiments  for  the  future,  but 
because  we  have  cut  ourselves  off  from  the  past.  A 
theatre  cannot  be  considered  a  national  theatre  at  its 
best  unless  along  with  the  impetus  of  the  new  it  pays  a 


THE  NEW  THEATRE  49 

deserved  tribute  to  the  old.  It  is  the  function  of  the 
state  theatre  to  conserve  the  art  resources  of  the  na 
tion. 

In  just  what  form  the  American  national  theatre 
will  come,  no  one  can  say.  Our  study  will  have  been 
for  nothing  if  it  has  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  forms 
of  the  European  theatre  should  be  duplicated  in 
America.  By  imitating  their  form  we  can  get  nowhere. 
The  hardest  lesson  the  New  Theatre  taught  us  was 
that  we  cannot  begin  where  France  and  Germany  are 
at  present.  Behind  all  the  free  theatres,  the  art  thea 
tres,  and  secessionist  theatres  of  these  countries  lie 
the  abiding  achievements  of  their  national  theatre, 
a  theatre  which  spells  standards  as  well  as  opportu 
nity  for  the  younger  worker,  for  it  has  supplied  ready 
to  hand  a  body  of  critical  opinion  on  matters  of  the 
theatre.  We  have  not  this  background,  and  for  this 
reason  our  work  for  the  present  must  be  more  funda 
mental.  To  begin  at  the  beginning  requires  patience 
and  modesty.  But  this  we  must  do.  We  must  follow 
where  the  slow  development  of  our  institutions  leads 
us,  into  a  national  institution  of  the  theatre  which 
is  planted  in  our  soil  and  nourished  of  our  substance. 
It  may  be  that  it  will  have  no  formal  dependence 
on  the  state.  Perhaps  it  will  be  self-supporting.  Or 
it  may  be  endowed  by  a  far-sighted  philanthropist. 
One  thing  is  certain.  For  the  present  big  ambitions 
must  be  forgotten.  Let  us  not  delude  ourselves  into 
thinking  we  can  leap  to  our  station.  Success  in  this 


50      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

movement  will  come  by  means  of  many  failures;  and 
through  the  slow  adjustment  of  many  forces  to  a 
single  end.  The  best  sign  of  hope  just  now  is  the  fact 
that  social  movements,  once  begun,  do  not  stop  half 
way. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   SOCIAL   SANCTION   OF  DRAMATIC  ART 

Is  art  its  own  justification  and  its  own  explana 
tion?  Or  does  it  refer  back  to  conditions  behind  itself 
for  the  sources  and  standards  of  its  existence?  No 
critic  can  altogether  ignore  these  questions,  for  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  aesthetic  judgments  he  sooner  or  later 
finds  himself  face  to  face  with  speculations  that  apply 
not  only  to  his  art  but  to  the  entirety  of  life.  The 
further  he  goes  in  his  questions  the  more  likely  he  is  to 
see  that  art  is  not  a  primary  human  activity,  but  a 
secondary  activity,  and  that,  as  his  judgments  on  art 
are  refined  and  clarified,  they  tend  to  identify  them 
selves  with  the  judgments  of  those  who  think  most 
clearly  in  matters  of  living.  He  ceases  then  to  look  for 
rules  of  art  apart  from  rules  of  life,  but  tends  rather 
to  seek  in  life  for  the  ultimate  sanctions  of  art. 

Now,  there  are  many  different  kinds  of  art,  and  as 
they  differ  the  form  of  their  sanction  will  differ.  Some, 
the  making  of  gems,  the  carving  of  friezes,  all  the  arts 
of  detached  ornament,  may  serve  that  strange  and 
quite  personal  thing  called  "  curiosity,"  the  desire  for 
an  individual  and  satisfying  beauty.  But  on  the  other 
extreme  there  are  arts  that  seem  to  apply  to  man  in 
his  group  relationships  rather  than  in  his  individual 


52      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

yearnings,  and  to  operate  through  organization  rather 
than  through  individual  vision.  Such  an  art  is  archi 
tecture,  and  to  this  class  also  dramatic  art  belongs. 
And  these  arts  we  call  social  arts.  But  it  needs  to  be 
remembered  that  in  both  cases  the  art  seeks  for,  and 
finds,  a  sanction  outside  of  itself  in  the  life  and  spirit 
of  man.  The  emphasis  differs  with  the  differing  de 
mands  of  the  human  spirit,  whether  of  curious  specu 
lation  or  of  mass  consciousness.  But  there  is  no 
quarrel  between  the  arts.  There  is  rather  a  mutual 
serviceableness.  The  instinct  for  a  curious  beauty 
can  on  the  one  side  be  shown  in  the  social  art  of  drama, 
and  on  the  other  side  the  methods  of  organization  can 
be  brought  to  bear  in  the  making  of  ornament.  The 
boundary  lines  between  the  arts  are  fluid,  and  while 
each  art  keeps  its  function,  it  tends  toward  a  universal 
expressiveness.  Like  the  world  of  man  the  world  of 
art  is  a  single  world. 

What  do  we  mean  when  we  say  drama  is  a  highly 
socialized  art?  For  an  answer  to  this  question  we  may 
well  go  back  in  thought  to  the  early  periods  of  com 
munity  life,  when  there  were  developing  two  separate 
social  activities.  On  the  one  side  there  was  physical  con 
test  and  sport,  and  on  the  other  side  religious  festival 
and  ritual.  In  the  first  of  these  there  is  expressed  the 
earliest  of  man's  ethical  attitudes,  as  these  are  related 
with  his  leisure  activities.  In  the  second,  we  find  the 
earliest  application  of  aesthetics  to  social  activities. 
These  two  activities  appeal  to  different  sides  of  human 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     53 

nature,  present  no  less  In  civilized  than  in  primitive 
man,  and  both  of  them  provide  strong  factors  in  the 
constitution  of  the  dramatic. 

If  we  study  these  activities,  we  find  that  the  first 
appeals  through  feats  of  strength  and  skill;  the  second 
appeals  through  the  exercise  and  stimulation  of  the 
senses.  In  the  case  of  feats  of  sport  the  pleasure  se 
cured  to  the  onlooker  is  that  vicarious  pleasure  which 
under  society  takes  the  place  of  individual  participa 
tion.  This  pleasure  is  largely  mental,  sympathetic, 
and  is  essentially  social  in  character.  And  likewise  in 
the  early  ceremonial  the  purpose  was  to  secure  for  the 
individual  through  the  channels  of  society  that  stimu 
lation  of  the  senses  that  awakens  to  fuller  and  keener 
life. 

It  is  clear  that  in  both  these  activities  the  essential 
thing  lies  quite  out  of  reach  of  any  individual  activity, 
and  locked  up  in  the  fabric  of  common  social  experi 
ence.  It  is  not  until  social  function  puts  its  stamp 
upon  these  activities  that  they  take  on  any  beyond 
the  simplest  and  most  rudimentary  meanings.  Then, 
however,  as  if  inspired  by  a  vibrant  mass  conscious 
ness,  a  new  social  activity  begins  to  develop,  dedi 
cated  from  its  birth  to  the  voicing  of  a  peculiar  mes 
sage.  Drama  begins  for  society  where  speech  begins 
for  the  individual,  in  the  first  rude  attempts  to  give 
language  to  unspoken  meanings. 

Society  is  more  than  the  sum  of  its  individuals:  so 
drama  is  more  than  the  sum  of  individual  messages. 


54      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

For  it  is  soon  discovered  that  under  the  force  of  so 
ciety  there  open  up  to  view  great  orbits  of  truth  never 
plumbed  by  the  telescope  of  individuality.  Growing 
with  the  growing  complexity  of  the  society  from  which 
it  springs,  and  whose  mouthpiece  it  is,  drama  develops 
to  forms  beyond  anything  promised  in  the  earlier  and 
simpler  activities  of  individual  life.  From  behind  the 
service  of  praise  to  the  victor,  the  ceremonials  and 
liturgies  over  the  dead,  and  the  prayers  to  the  gods, 
through  the  developing  sense  of  beauty  aroused  by 
the  harmonies  of  sound,  the  arrangements  of  line  and 
color,  and  concordant  posturings,  there  steal  intima 
tions  of  spiritual  regions  lying  quite  beyond  the  im 
agination  of  the  artist  of  individual  expressiveness. 
In  this  way  society  discovers  itself  when  it  discovers 
its  drama. 

A  DEMOCRATIC  ART 

It  has  been  said  that  drama  is  the  most  democratic 
of  the  arts;  that  it  is  in  fact  the  only  art  which  is  es 
sentially  democratic  in  character.  Is  this  the  assertion 
of  a  partisan  or  can  it  be  defended?  If  we  study 
any  one  of  the  other  arts,  music,  painting,  sculpture, 
or  poetry,  we  will  see  that  there  is  in  their  substance 
and  form  of  appeal  no  essential  dependence  on  social 
groups.  Apparently  any  one  of  these  arts  could  exist, 
as  far  as  content  is  concerned,  in  a  quite  unsocial 
world,  and  no  one  of  them  demands  for  its  apprecia 
tion  anything  more  than  the  alert  sense  of  beauty  in 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     55 

the  individual.  It  is  quite  possible  to  conceive  of  the 
proper  artistic  response  between  a  picture  and  a  single 
individual  seated  alone  in  a  museum  of  art.  A  piece  of 
sculpture  presents  its  beauty  to  the  individual  better 
than  to  the  crowd.  So  also  the  aesthetic  reaction  se 
cured  from  the  playing  of  a  sonata  in  a  closed  room  by 
an  isolated  individual  is  as  satisfactory  and  complete 
as  that  which  comes  to  one  member  of  a  group. 
Poetry,  too,  is  as  truly  poetry  when  read  alone  as  when 
read  aloud  to  a  large  body  of  people. 

All  these  are  arts  which  depend  upon  artistic  cri 
teria  which  may  be  as  thoroughly  developed  in  the 
individual  as  in  society.  They  appeal  directly  to  none 
of  the  essentially  social  functions.  It  is  drama  alone 
which,  springing  out  of  the  social  functions  for  its 
subject-matter,  depends  upon  these  functions  for  its 
understanding  and  is  incomplete  without  them.  Any 
one  who  has  attended  the  last  rehearsals  of  a  play 
and  has  noticed  how  the  lines  and  situations  upon 
which  the  author  has  placed  his  best  thought,  and 
into  which  the  manager  and  actor  have  thrown  their 
most  careful  efforts,  seem  in  the  empty  room  to  be  flat 
and  unprofitable,  must  have  felt  that  something  was 
lacking  which  could  not  be  supplied  by  any  individual, 
however  skilled.  And  if,  perhaps,  he  has  attended  the 
performance  on  a  later  evening  when  the  audience ' 
chamber,  empty  before,  is  filled  with  intelligent  hu 
manity,  and  has  noticed  that  the  same  lines  and 
same  situations  are  greeted  with  a  clamor  of  approval, 


56      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

he  has  been  led  to  appreciate  how  thoroughly  drama 
is  dependent  on  the  crowd  emotion.  After  this  ex 
perience  he  may  even  feel  himself  justified  in  con 
cluding  that  the  one  indispensable  factor  of  drama  is 
not  author,  or  manager,  or  even  player,  but  audience, 
and  that  the  necessary  characteristic  of  the  audience  is 
not  so  much  either  intellectual  criticism,  or  favorable 
attitude,  as  it  is  simply  that  sense  of  mass  coalescence 
that  impels  the  audience  to  react  as  a  social  unit. 

Now,  that  which  is  true  of  the  appeal  of  drama  is 
no  less  true  of  its  substance.  In  respect  of  substance 
drama  is  a  democratic  art,  for  it  derives  its  being  from 
the  recognized  and  interrelated  functions  of  society. 
No  other  art  equals  the  drama  in  sheer  immediacy  of 
method.  No  other  art  is  so  direct  in  uncovering  the 
human  purposes  of  men  and  women.  Any  comparison 
between  one  art  and  another  upon  the  score  of  uni 
versality  would  lead  one  into  unprofitable  specula 
tions.  However,  whether  drama  is  more  universal 
than  other  arts  or  not,  —  and  certainly  there  is  some 
thing  that  could  be  said  in  defense  of  this  theory,  — 
it  cannot  be  questioned  that  it  is  more  immediate  and 
concrete.  Drama  is  the  art  which  most  accepts  the 
symbols  of  common  experience,  in  which  the  simple 
formulas  of  everyday  living  are  made,  more  than  in 
any  other  art,  to  serve  as  the  channels  of  spiritual 
expression.  And  it  gains  this  immediacy  at  no  ex 
pense  of  subtlety  or  depth,  for  it  retains  always  the 
power  of  signifying  by  the  most  concrete  means  im- 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     57 

aginative  values  of  the  greatest  delicacy  and  remote 
ness. 

Beyond  this  characteristic  of  concreteness  in  drama, 
which  will  always  be  the  explanation  of  its  great  hold 
upon  the  people  and  its  power  as  a  social  instrument, 
lies  the  fact  that  of  all  the  arts  drama  is  the  only  one 
in  which  the  substance  of  the  art  is  identical  with  the 
substance  of  the  thing  signified.  The  art  of  sculpture, 
taking  stone  and  clay  as  the  substance  of  the  art, 
translates  the  rude  outlines  of  these  materials  into 
forms  indicative  of  the  values  of  humanity  and  spir 
ituality.  Painting,  acting  under  certain  conventions 
of  perspective,  takes  the  substance  of  canvas  and  oils 
and  water  colors,  and  conveys  through  these  the  val 
ues  of  beauty.  In  the  same  way  music  restricts  itself 
to  the  artificially  created  phenomena  of  sound,  and 
secures  from  the  combinations  of  sounds  in  harmony 
and  discord  symbols  applicable  to  the  farthest  reaches 
of  psychic  meaning.  In  the  case  of  all  these  arts  the 
substance  of  the  art  is  diverse  from,  and  often  appar 
ently  inconsistent  with,  the  substance  of  the  thing 
signified.  As  a  result  these  arts  require  for  their  un 
derstanding  an  acceptance  of  conventions,  some  of 
which  go  very  far  into  the  regions  of  the  complex  and 
even  of  the  artificial.  An  understanding  of  the  art  of 
music,  even  the  enjoyment  of  the  best  music,  is  not  an 
immediate  power;  it  is  a  developed  faculty  of  the  mind 
and  taste.  So  also  of  painting  and  sculpture.  There 
is  nothing  immediate  in  the  mind  of  man  which  pro- 


58      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

vides  criteria  for  the  understanding  of  the  greatest  in 
these  arts.  For  by  the  disparity  of  their  substance 
from  the  substance  of  the  thing  signified,  and  by  the 
impediments  of  convention  and  developed  technique 
built  up  between  the  art  and  the  natural  understand 
ing  of  man,  these  arts  are  necessarily  appropriated  to 
the  enjoyment  of  the  cultivated  taste. 

Compared  with  these  arts,  if  we  turn  to  drama,  we 
see  how  complete  is  the  identification  of  the  substance 
of  the  art  with  the  substance  of  the  thing  signified. 
Taking  living  men  and  women,  with  their  words,  their 
gestures,  their  peculiarities  of  speech,  their  expression 
of  face  and  modulations  of  voice,  their  particularities 
of  physical  control,  the  drama  identifies  with  these  in 
direct  and  immediate  order  the  symbols  of  its  art. 
There  is  between  the  artist  and  his  auditor  no  clash  of 
uncorresponding  symbols.  Developed  as  is  the  tech 
nique  of  drama,  its  fundamental  theories  are  most 
simple  and  immediate.  The  power  which  is  thus 
given  to  drama  as  an  organ  of  popular  appeal  is 
not  given  to  any  other  art.  It  takes  no  high  sense 
to  appreciate  the  truth  or  the  beauty  of  a  play.  In 
those  cases  in  which  the  substance  goes  beyond 
the  understanding  of  the  auditor,  the  play  may  be 
beyond  his  reach,  just  as  one  man  may  fail  to  un 
derstand  another  man  of  profounder  character,  but 
there  is  nothing  in  the  formulas  of  even  the  greatest 
plays  that  puts  them  out  of  the  reach  of  the  ordinary 
man.  Euripides  and  Shakespeare,  Schiller  and  Synge, 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     59 

have  that  largeness  and  at  the  same  time  simplicity 
which  do  not  go  beyond  the  understanding  of  the 
general. 

Furthermore,  as  drama  is  the  immediate  art  of  so 
cial  humanity,  it  necessarily  includes  and  implies  all 
other  arts  and  social  activities.  In  a  definite  sense  it 
is  the  art  of  arts,  just  as  it  may  be  considered  the  art 
of  social  man.  For  if  it  is  to  be  true  to  the  essential 
nature  of  man,  drama  must  do  justice  to  all  the  factors 
and  expressions  of  that  nature.  In  these  there  will  be 
included  the  stimulations  rising  from  dancing,  from 
design,  from  music,  from  religious  and  folk  ceremo 
nial.  So  also  drama  includes  immediately  all  those 
factors  which  we  have  learned  to  consider  essential  to 
the  understanding  of  the  life  of  man.  Not  only  the 
man  himself,  but  the  house  in  which  he  lives,  na 
ture  as  background  and  nature  as  environment,  the 
atmosphere  he  breathes,  the  soil  upon  which  he  stands 
and  to  which  he  returns,  being  factors  of  life,  are  fac 
tors  of  the  play.  And  these  must  be  presented  in  their 
close  relationship  to  the  man,  for  in  the  truest  sense 
they  are  part  and  substance  of  him.  A  man  is  more 
than  his  physical  body.  "I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I 
have  met,"  is  a  dictum  that  expresses  a  whole  social 
philosophy.  And  beyond  any  other  art  drama  pre 
sents  the  facilities  for  the  treatment  of  man  in  this 
all-inclusive  sense.  Drama  can  present  that  subtle 
background  making  up  the  life  of  man,  which  is  yet 
so  indefinite  and  illusory  that  it  well-nigh  escapes 


60      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

statement.  By  the  factors  of  its  peculiar  technique 
drama  serves  to  express  those  activities  of  human 
life,  most  important  as  features  of  humanity,  which 
lose  their  greatest  verity  when  formulated  under  the 
symbols  of  other  arts.  On  the  one  hand,  drama  in 
cludes  and  expresses  the  predicative  values  of  life  as 
they  are  involved  in  an  alert  human  mind  speculating 
upon  its  own  processes,  and  at  the  other  extreme  it 
opens  the  door  upon  those  intimate  and  delicate  in 
sights  which  are  the  peculiar  intimations  of  the  static 
arts  of  sculpture  and  painting. 

We  have  said  that  the  play  lives  upon  the  respon 
siveness  of  the  people  in  social  mass  assembled.  In  a 
deeper  sense  the  great  play  is  not  only  dependent  upon 
the  people  for  life;  it  is  the  creation  of  the  people. 
This,  which  is  common  enough  in  all  the  arts,  is  pe 
culiarly  true  of  the  play.  A  great  play  is  greater  after 
fifty  years  than  it  is  when  the  author  writes,  and  the 
manager  first  produces,  for  in  this  time  there  has  been 
added  to  the  play  a  wealth  of  new  and  vital  meaning. 
Each  character  and  each  symbol  of  the  play  has  taken 
on,  under  the  light  of  the  particular  civilization  in 
which  it  is  produced,  connotations  which  are  of  the 
fibre  of  that  civilization.  Shakespeare's  plays  were 
at  the  time  they  were  written  distinctively  plays  of 
Elizabethan  England,  no  less  Elizabethan  plays  be 
cause  they  were  so  often  concerned  with  alien  topics. 
In  the  centuries  which  have  followed  their  composi 
tion  they  have  almost  ceased  to  be  Elizabethan  plays. 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     61 

But  they  have  become  even  more  English  than  they 
were  at  first  through  the  gathering  about  them  of  the 
symbols  of  national  consciousness.  More  than  that, 
they  have  become  also  German  plays  in  Germany  as 
their  symbols  have  been  made  to  serve  for  the  expres 
sion  of  Teutonic  life,  and  French  plays  in  France. 
And  as  time  has  gone  on  bringing  new  eras  with  their 
own  formulas  and  social  issues,  these  plays  have  be 
come  modern  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term,  for  suc 
cessive  societies  have  interpreted  their  symbols  in 
terms  of  new  meanings. 

In  one  further  and  very  important  respect  drama 
may  be  said  to  be  a  democratic  art.  We  have  shown 
that  drama  accompanies  the  growth  of  civic  conscious 
ness,  that  it  becomes  at  first  the  play  and  amusement 
function  of  society,  and  that  from  this  function,  as 
society  develops  in  psychic  and  aesthetic  demands, 
there  gradually  develops  the  highest  artistic  expression 
in  dramatic  form.  All  along  the  progress  of  society, 
from  the  first  rude  relationship  of  men  in  the  wilder 
ness  to  the  most  refined  communion  in  the  Platonic 
city  beautiful,  drama  accompanies  and  is  involved  in 
the  progress  of  social  institutions. 

Now,  it  may  be  said  that  the  progress  of  society  is 
always  in  the  direction  of  breaking  down  the  imped 
ing  barriers  between  personality,  and  in  coordinating 
individuals  efficiently  into  the  mass.  The  state  in  its 
best  expression  is  achieving  the  change  of  men  into 
Man.  In  the  same  way  the  art  of  drama  is  achieved. 


62      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

Significant  as  the  story  of  the  individual  man  may  be, 
and  interesting  as  may  be  the  study  of  his  personal 
psychology,  these  things  are  in  fact  important  only 
when  viewed  in  the  light  of  their  universal  significance. 
Not  as  Hamlet,  nor  as  Othello,  nor  as  Faust,  but  as 
diverse  and  veritable  manifestations  of  the  complex 
spirit  of  man,  here  wearied  by  thought,  there  per 
plexed  in  the  extreme,  or  wavering  between  two 
worlds  of  choice,  are  these  great  plays  most  largely 
significant.  As  in  humanity  itself,  so  in  art,  it  is  not 
that  which  is  immediate  which  is  the  mystery  and  the 
meaning.  It  is  that  which  lies  behind  the  elementary. 
Art  is  a  matter  of  the  hidden  presented  in  terms  of  the 
revealed.  And  to  the  great  human  social  vistas  it  is 
drama  of  all  the  arts  which  raises  the  highest  mount 
of  outlook.  Like  the  movements  of  the  evolutionary 
processes  themselves,  as  they  are  applied  to  human 
ity,  drama  operates  by  the  fusing  of  men  into  Man. 
Through  its  massed  social  sense,  through  its  universal 
appeal,  through  its  background  of  nature  and  human 
life,  through  its  responsive  cooperation  among  writer, 
and  player,  and  audience,  through  its  acquisition  of 
social  meanings  beyond  the  wish  or  intent  of  the  first 
creator,  drama  is  essentially  a  democratic  art. 

WHAT  IS  DRAMATIC  TRUTH? 

All  that  has  been  said  on  drama  as  a  social  art  has 
been  preparatory  to  the  question  which  we  now  ask, 
"What  is  dramatic  truth?"  It  perhaps  cannot  be 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     63 

questioned  that  if  we  accept  the  social  basis  of  the  art 
of  drama,  we  cannot  expect  dramatic  truth  to  be  an 
absolute  thing.  When  truth  touches  art  its  problems 
become  concrete  just  as  they  do  when  truth  touches 
human  conduct.  It  is  the  province  of  the  arts  to  make 
truth  concrete. 

But  though  we  cannot  state  the  laws  which  underlie 
dramatic  truth  absolutely,  we  can  show  some  of  the 
conditions  which  govern  its  relativity,  particularly  as 
these  apply  to  society.  Peculiarly  enough,  we  do  not 
go  for  this  statement  to  any  modern  social  philosopher 
or  theorist  in  social  art,  but  to  a  poet  who  was  both 
democrat  and  aristocrat  in  the  best  meanings  of  these 
words.  In  his  famous  speech  to  the  Players,  Shake 
speare  makes  Hamlet  speak  of  the  end  of  the  player's 
art  being,  "to  show  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time 
its  form  and  pressure."  What  Hamlet  said  of  the 
player's  art  can  apply  to  the  whole  art  of  the  stage.  If 
we  analyze  this  speech,  we  will  find  that  it  offers  some 
very  important  specifications  for  dramatic  truth. 

First,  Hamlet  said  that  the  player  should  show  the 
very  "age  and  body  of  the  time."  Above  all  other 
speech  arts,  drama  utilizes  the  symbolism  of  material 
things  in  the  forms  in  which  they  are  presented  to  us 
by  experience.  This  is  the  limitation  of  drama,  and  it 
is  at  the  same  time  its  greatest  strength.  Other  arts 
are  better  for  expressing  the  philosophies  of  rare  minds, 
or  the  visions  of  a  delicate  and  attenuated  beauty. 
But  it  is  drama,  above  all,  which  has  the  power  to 


64      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

make  spiritual  things  flesh.  And  through  the  lips  of 
his  character  Shakespeare  lays  down  another  specifi 
cation  for  dramatic  truth.  It  must  deal  not  only  with 
the  "body,"  but  with  the  "body  of  the  time."  In 
other  words  dramatic  truth  is  always  predicated  on 
the  age.  It  arises  from  fidelity  to  the  eternal  order  of 
things  expressed  in  terms  of  the  particular  and  the 
temporal.  If  we  are  to  discover  what  is  dramatic 
truth  for  any  age,  we  must  discover  the  underlying 
characteristics  which  constitute  the  essence  of  the  age. 
An  implication  of  this  requirement  is  that,  at  the 
point  at  which  dramatic  art  seizes  the  facts  of  life, 
these  shall  not  have  been  formulated  by  history  or 
scholarship.  It  is  not  with  the  dead  and  static  facts  of 
a  formulated  world  that  drama  is  concerned,  but  with 
the  living  facts  of  a  world  that  is  testing  new  values. 
It  is  the  sign  of  the  veritableness  of  a  social  fact  that 
it  is  a  changing  and  not  a  fixed  thing.  Society  in  every 
age  is  a  matter  of  present  evolving  factors.  So  art 
likewise  is  concerned  with  the  becoming  rather  than 
with  the  being;  and  more  with  that  which  is  to  be  than 
with  that  which  is.  For  it  is  the  mark  of  the  artist 
that  he  has  an  alert  sense,  that  to  him  truth  means 
values  not  yet  formulated.  Yeats  has  said,  "Art  is  the 
sign  of  values  not  yet  understood,  of  a  coinage  not  yet 
minted."  Another  has  said,  "  In  art  there  are  only 
revolutionists  and  plagiarists."  It  is  the  part  of 
science  and  scholarship  to  be  concerned  with  the  past 
as  it  extends  up  to  and  explains  the  present.  It  is  the 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA    65 

part  of  creative  art  to  be  concerned  with  the  pres 
ent  as  it  looks  out  upon  and  constructs  the  future. 
This,  then,  is  the  index  of  great  art  that,  like  the 
social  movements  of  any  period,  it  is  prophetic  of  a 
coming  order. 

And  Hamlet  asked  further  that  the  player  give  the 
time  its  "form  and  pressure."  Here  is  a  thing  differing 
from  substance,  and  from  modernity,  and  as  impor 
tant  as  either.  For  another  art  it  would  be  perhaps 
"color"  or  "touch"  or  "style,"  but  for  drama  this  re 
quirement  is  best  expressed  as  "surface."  This  is  no 
mere  external  requirement  of  finish  in  a  play.  It  is  of 
the  fabric  of  its  truth  in  that  it  has  to  do  with  the  unit 
of  society  which  it  is  the  province  of  the  artist  to  in 
terpret  in  his  work.  It  is  impossible  for  the  dramatist 
to  take  generalized  human  beings  for  his  substance. 
He  must  take  particular  human  beings  as  they  are 
played  upon  by  particular  social  conditions.  For  this 
purpose  he  can  use  only  apprehensible  social  units 
which  present  surface  characteristics  and  differenti 
ated  values. 

The  division  of  art  among  national  and  racial  lines 
is  no  mere  matter  of  patriotism.  It  goes  back  to  the 
natures  of  men  themselves,  seeking  their  proper 
place  upon  the  globe,  experimenting  for  a  relative  so 
cial  equilibrium,  and  struggling  for  a  national  speech. 
So  far  in  world  history  the  nation  has  been  a  means 
of  human  administration.  It  would  not  be  too  much 
to  say  that  the  best  things  in  social  life  have  been 


66      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

gained  by  means  of  the  particularized  social  groups 
organized  in  races,  and  nations,  and  provinces.  In  art 
likewise  national  lines  have  been  means  of  adminis 
tration.  Coherent  social  groups  have  served  to  in 
crease  rather  than  to  lessen  the  power  to  express  a 
universal  message.  It  is  probable  that  in  the  future  as 
in  the  past,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  to  federate  the  world, 
those  dramas  will  be  most  universal  which  magnify 
humanity  through  the  lens  of  national  or  provincial 
life.  As  an  instrument  of  spiritual  economy  and  con 
centration,  it  is  improbable  that  the  nation  will  lose 
its  significance  for  art  within  the  imagination  of  man. 

Indeed,  so  far  from  broadening  the  outlines  of  social 
administration,  the  tendency  in  art  has  always  been 
and  is  to  seek  out  the  smallest  apprehensible  unit  of 
society  which  still  presents  in  maturity  the  graces  of 
unified  social  life.  If  we  look  over  the  history  of  art, 
we  find  that  it  is  those  nations  which  have  been  most 
clearly  cut  apart  from  their  neighbors  that  have  been 
the  best  breeding-grounds  of  art.  They  may  have  been 
cut  off  by  natural  divisions,  and  by  the  barriers  of 
mountain  or  sea  have  been  forced  to  find  among  them 
selves  the  materials  of  their  destiny;  or  they  may  have 
been  cut  off  by  racial  prejudice  and  strife,  and  have 
discovered  themselves  as  a  nation  in  fighting  their 
foes.  In  either  case  it  has  been  the  clearly  organized 
nation  which  has  most  early  found  speech.  In  like 
manner  the  speech  of  art  has  been  found  to  come  most 
readily  to  the  smaller  rather  than  to  the  larger  units 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     67 

of  race  or  nation.  In  many  cases  that  which  we  know 
as  the  art  of  the  nation  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  art 
of  one  of  its  provinces.  And  when  this  is  true,  it  is 
usually  the  province  which  is  drawn  together  by  ex 
ternal  or  internal  forces  into  the  most  dynamic  social 
life  that  finds  the  earliest  language  in  art.  How  much 
the  art  of  the  world  is  in  truth  the  art  of  small  and  co 
herent  provinces  is  perhaps  not  recognized  until  one 
studies  the  history  of  art  in  the  light  of  social  history. 

This,  then,  is  a  requirement  for  truth  in  all  art,  and 
particularly  in  the  drama,  that  it  shall  show  the  "form 
and  pressure"  of  the  life  of  which  it  is  the  outgrowth. 
Sometimes  this  is  called  " local  color";  sometimes 
" national  backgrounds."  By  whatever  name  it  may 
be  called,  the  thing  itself  is  a  verity  that  cannot  be 
gainsaid  when  present,  and  cannot  in  any  case  be  imi 
tated.  It  is  as  much  part  and  parcel  of  a  great  work  of 
art  as  a  peculiar  flavor  of  speech  is  an  attribute  of  a 
district.  So  far  from  limiting  and  curtailing  free  ex 
pression  in  a  work  of  dramatic  art,  it  is  an  instrument 
of  peculiar  richness  and  subtlety  in  discovering  the 
deeper  places  in  human  experience.  Without  it  a  play 
is  not  completely  a  play  in  the  same  sense  that  a  man 
without  a  country  is  not  entirely  a  man. 

We  have  found  in  Shakespeare's  words,  spoken 
through  the  lips  of  Hamlet,  several  tests  by  which  we 
can  judge  the  truth  of  a  play  in  relation  to  the  society 
which  produces  the  play.  Applying  these  tests,  we  see 
why  so  many  plays  fail.  It  must  be  apparent  that  any 


68      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

effort  to  maintain  one  standard  of  playwriting  from 
age  to  age  by  fortifying  the  conventions  of  its  tech 
nique,  so  far  from  serving  the  cause  of  truth  is  a  funda 
mental  pursuit  of  error.  In  the  same  way  the  effort  to 
transplant  to  one  nation  the  dramatic  art  of  its  neigh 
bor  is  conducive  to  falsehood.  Dramatic  truth  differs 
from  generation  to  generation  as  the  generations  dif 
fer,  and  varies  in  manifestation  from  one  nation  to 
another.  This  is  the  most  fundamental  of  all  lessons, 
and  yet  the  one  which  artists  are  most  prone  to  forget: 
that  one  nation  cannot  express  its  social  and  spiritual 
values  in  terms  of  the  art  of  another  nation;  that  one 
time  learns  little  in  the  statement  of  its  inner  mean 
ing  from  the  processes  of  speech  of  a  preceding  age. 
That  dramatic  art  became  a  region  of  absurdities  and 
falsehood  is  to  be  ascribed  mainly  to  the  ignoring  of 
these  truths. 

And  so  it  must  be  clear  that,  while  dramatic  truth 
is  a  certain  thing,  it  is  not  an  absolute  thing;  that 
while  we  cannot  place  our  hands  on  any  formula  and 
say,  "Here  is  the  truth,  and  here,  and  here,"  there  are 
yet  ascertainable  bases  of  truth  that  make  it  possible 
to  say  from  what  sources  of  human  experience  and 
principles  of  human  expression  it  springs.-  So  far  we 
have  been  concerned  merely  with  showing  the  need  of 
a  close  relationship  between  dramatic  art  and  the  soci 
ety  of  which  it  is  an  expression.  But  unfortunately 
there  is  no  guaranty  of  perpetual  values  in  this.  Some 
periods  are  what  are  called  transition  times;  in  others 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     69 

the  pendulum  seems  definitely  to  swing  backward.  The 
art  which  represents  such  an  age  may  satisfy  all  the 
laws  of  its  being  and  still  be  doomed  to  pass  away 
with  the  diseased  age  of  which  it  is  the  sickly  flower. 
If  we  would  look  for  the  larger  truth  in  art  which  will 
live  from  age  to  age,  we  must  find  not  only  a  test  of 
the  art  by  the  standards  of  the  age,  but  a  larger  test 
by  which  the  period  and  its  art  may  be  judged  at 
once.  And  that  test  may  itself  be  a  social  test. 

Drama  and  the  social  order  from  which  it  springs 
must  both  be  judged  by  their  fidelity  to  the  best 
principles  of  a  never-expanding,  self-perfecting  social 
life.  What  are  the  tests  of  this?  They  are,  first,  for 
any  movement  or  play,  "Is  it  natural?"  and  second, 
"Is  it  socially  constructive?"  The  requirement  that 
at  its  heart  drama  shall  be  natural  is  equivalent  to  the 
requirement  of  sincerity  that  is  laid  upon  all  human 
works.  But  it  is  that  fundamental  sincerity  that  re 
quires  that  the  work  shall  be  the  result  of  a  primary 
creative  impulse,  that  it  shall  express  by  simple  rather 
than  perverted  means  the  life  that  lies  behind  it. 
Above  all,  it  is  the  requirement  to  be  unaffectedly  in 
accord  with  the  eternal  order  of  things.  Art  is  not  the 
voice  of  the  anarch  or  the  Anti-Christ. 

But  beyond  this  requirement  of  the  natural  there  is 
one  that  springs  more  nearly  from  the  social  sources 
of  our  art.  Individually  man  is  disposed  to  concern 
himself  with  the  present.  It  is  when  he  becomes  a  so 
cial  being  that  his  activities  broaden  into  the  activi- 


yo      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

ties  of  preparation.  In  the  extent  to  which  they  are 
socially  minded  men  busy  themselves  with  coming 
values.  Society  is  always  chiefly  concerned  with  its 
future. 

Here  is  another  test  of  the  larger  truth  in  drama, 
that  it  shall  be  alert  in  the  service  of  the  coming  pros 
perity.  Drama  shall  not  only  be  natural,  but  it  shall 
itself  be  socially  constructive.  We  have  a  right  to  de 
mand  of  our  drama  that  it  shall  conduce  to  upbuilding 
and  social  health.  It  is  laid  upon  drama  by  the  condi 
tions  of  its  substance  that  it  shall  promote  that  social 
solidarity  of  which  it  is  itself  the  outgrowth  and  the 
completest  expression  in  art.  A  play  which  by  con 
ception  or  influence  is  anti-social  is  an  anomaly  and  a 
perversity. 

We  have  here  some  larger  tests  of  dramatic  truth 
than  those  which  have  been  given  before,  for  by  these 
we  can  learn  not  only  whether  a  play  is  true  according 
to  the  standard  of  its  time,  but  whether  it  is  true  by 
the  standard  of  all  time.  In  order  that  a  play  may 
live  it  must  be  one  with  the  expanding  purposes  of  so 
cial  progress.  More  than  that,  it  must  have  served 
its  part  in  clarifying  social  issues  and  in  formulating  a 
better  order.  By  the  use  of  these  tests  we  get  an  abun 
dant  light  on  the  fortunes  of  the  plays  of  the  past.  We 
see  why  some  plays,  rapturously  hailed  by  their  con 
temporaries,  passed  away  to  early  neglect.  Perhaps 
they  so  emphasized  the  surface  accidents  of  the  time 
as  to  mistake  the  skin  for  the  flesh,  and  the  body  for 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     71 

the  soul,  as  did  Ben  Jonson,  and  so  passed  away  be 
cause  they  were  not  natural.  Or  perhaps  they  spun  a 
beautiful  world  of  illusion  out  of  the  fabric  of  false 
sentiment  and  overblown  passion,  as  did  the  Roman 
ticists  of  France  in  the  last  century,  and  so  passed 
away  because  they  were  socially  destructive,  as  false 
hood  always  is.  By  these  tests  we  see,  too,  why  some 
plays  have  grown  into  an  ever-broadening  prosperity. 
They  may  have  emphasized  the  tragedy  of  life;  they 
may  have  ridiculed  its  weaknesses  and  foibles;  they 
may  have  been  crowded  with  clowns  and  buffoons; 
they  may  have  thrilled  with  a  luscious  line,  or  been 
touched  by  the  pain  of  deep  experience;  they  may 
have  reflected  but  the  passing  joy  of  a  day,  and  have 
passed  away  with  the  laughter  they  evoked;  or  they 
may  have  created  for  coming  generations  the  ideal  of  a 
new  and  ordered  cosmos;  but  whatever  the  purpose  or 
the  class  to  which  each  belonged,  we  may  be  sure  that 
it  was  justified  in  its  place  according  as  it  was  natural 
and  socially  constructive. 

By  these  tests  we  are  helped  to  a  better  discrimina 
tion,  and  are  led  not  to  expect  too  much  of  particular 
plays.  Some  plays  which  can  never  be  considered  great 
are  still  to  be  vigorously  defended  as  they  satisfy  a 
peculiar  temporary  requirement.  Each  age  demands 
its  language  even  though  that  language  may  not  be 
the  voice  of  beauty.  More  than  that,  in  an  art  of  the 
broad  complexity  and  appeal  of  drama  each  class  and 
critical  school  of  society  demands  its  own  particular 


72       CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

satisfaction.  There  is  no  aesthetic  imperative  in  the 
art  of  drama  to  refuse  these  demands,  nor  can  there 
ever  be.  The  sooner  we  learn  that  all  we  can  demand 
of  dramatic  art  is  that  it  shall  satisfy  those  principles 
of  social  representativeness  and  constructiveness  that 
have  been  suggested,  the  sooner  we  shall  place  drama 
on  the  high  road  to  the  attainment  of  the  very  highest 
things  both  as  an  art  and  as  a  social  function.  The  hue 
and  cry  against  the  "  morbid  "  play,  against  the  motion- 
picture  show,  the  vaudeville,  and  the  melodrama,  may 
do  more  harm  than  good  in  that  they  will  turn  back 
upon  society  those  impulses  which  otherwise  are  finding 
a  fairly  normal,  though  perhaps  unbeautiful,  release. 

Without  defending  the  " morbid"  play  as  an  abso 
lute  thing,  it  may  still  be  said  that  many  a  critic  whose 
sensibilities  are  too  tender  to  permit  him  the  sight  of 
blood  condemns  the  true  because  it  fails  to  foster  his 
illusion  of  life.  There  are  times  when  iconoclasm 
is  the  only  true  social  constructiveness,  and  when 
health  implies  and  requires  the  fearless  probing  of 
disease.  Let  each  man  interpret  the  health  of  the 
coming  order  in  terms  of  clear  sight  and  resolute 
thinking.  The  result,  if  he  is  a  playwright,  may  not  be 
a  play  that  will  live  for  all  time,  but  it  probably  will 
serve  as  a  useful  document  in  the  hands  of  his  con 
temporaries  for  the  reading  of  their  book  of  life. 

Many  see  the  downfall  of  drama,  and  perhaps  of 
society  itself,  in  the  present  vogue  of  cheap  entertain 
ment.  They  should  rather  rejoice  in  the  tremendous 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     73 

outlet  now  being  found  for  the  leisure  activities  of 
men,  that  through  these  activities  drama  is  securing  a 
stirring-up  of  the  soil  around  its  roots  that  will  re 
sult  in  fruit  some  time. 

By  some  it  may  be  thought  that  this  definition  of 
dramatic  truth  leaves  little  room  for  the  drama  of 
ornament,  the  masque,  the  commedia  deVarte,  for  those 
new  schools  of  drama  that  are  rising  as  a  reaction 
against  the  burden  of  thought  in  the  theatre,  and  are 
therefore  making  their  appeal  to  a  refined  sense  of 
sight  and  a  new  and  expert  symbolism  of  the  senses. 
In  a  sense  this  may  be  true.  We  have  never  yet  dis 
covered  a  measure  of  values  as  apt  and  on  the  whole 
as  judicious  as  the  standard  of  longevity.  This  stand 
ard  is,  for  our  mundane  fashions,  the  nearest  approach 
we  can  make  to  the  spiritual  ideal  of  immortality. 
The  judgments  of  time  may  be  false,  but  the  judg 
ments  of  a  long  time  are  likely  to  be  true.  And  to 
the  absolute  creations,  the  marbles  of  the  Greeks,  the 
plays  of  Shakespeare,  we  give  the  judgment  of  time- 
lessness.  No  art  can  or  does  live  save  as  it  is  expressed 
in  abiding  symbols.  We  would  regret  this  the  more 
did  we  not  recognize  that  the  thing  that  is  lost  is  the 
temporal  thing.  We  do  not  regret  that  the  Greek  and 
the  Egyptian  dancer  is  lost,  and  that  the  Grecian  urn 
and  the  Egyptian  relief  have  been  retained.  For  in 
losing  the  one  we  have  lost  all  that  is  necessarily  tem 
porary  and  of  the  senses,  and  in  retaining  the  other  we 
have  retained  all  that  is  permanent.  In  other  words, 


74      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

it  is  possible  to  translate  all  art  that  is  worthy  of  per 
petuity  into  the  symbols  of  perpetuity.  And  if  this 
translation  cannot  be  made,  the  art  is  by  this  fact  cut 
off  from  the  standards  of  the  abiding. 

Now,  from  all  times  the  permanent  symbols  of  dra 
matic  art  have  been  spiritual  and  social  symbols,  and 
plays  have  taken  their  place  in  the  timeless  judg 
ment  by  the  appeal  they  make  to  the  universal  soul  of 
man.  Some  plays  that  possess  these  social  symbols 
still  fail  of  perpetuity  because  the  symbols,  being 
peculiar  to  the  age,  lose  their  force  in  later  times. 
But  no  play  has  lived  without  them.  They  may  have 
been  rich  with  all  the  appeals  to  the  senses,  but  these 
appeals  declined  and  were  lost.  In  some  of  the 
plays  there  was  displayed  the  perfection  of  the  art 
ist's  form  and  design,  but  standards  of  form  are  not 
permanent  in  drama  in  the  sense  that  they  are 
permanent  in  sculpture  and  architecture.  The  plays 
that  satisfy  the  only  test  our  wisdom  can  supply, 
whether  of  Sophocles,  Shakespeare,  or  Moliere,  have 
remained  for  the  light  they  throw  on  the  life  of  man. 

Is  there,  then,  in  drama  no  place  for  curious  beauty? 
This  does  not  by  any  means  follow.  For  the  search 
for  curious  beauty  is  itself  but  an  expression  of  the 
inner  soul  of  man.  Man  is  not  cut  off  from  his  fellows 
by  his  riper  judgments,  the  more  recondite  demands 
of  his  spirit.  He  is  rather  the  more  closely  united  with 
all  men.  The  two  artists  of  the  Middle  Ages  who  are 
most  remembered  for  their  humanity  are  Benvenuto 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     75 

Cellini  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  One  was  a  gem 
craftsman;  the  other  had  a  mind  " enigmatical  beyond 
the  usual  measure  of  great  men."  It  is  through  the 
symbols  of  his  searching  for  beauty  that  man  is  re 
membered  from  age  to  age  if  so  be  that  his  searching 
is  expressed  in  abiding  forms.  And  dramatic  art  does 
not  close  the  door  to  this  search.  It  demands  only  the 
abiding  symbol,  the  permanent  substance.  If  the  new 
dramatist  would  express  but  the  satisfaction  of  the 
senses,  if  to  him  light  means  only  a  palpable  medium 
for  new  effects,  if  color  and  design  and  shadow  are  but 
ornaments,  then,  indeed,  he  has  chosen  in  the  theatre 
the  wrong  medium  by  which  to  perpetuate  his  im 
pression.  He  might  better  have  chosen  paint  or  clay, 
which  always  have  the  faculty  of  adding  to  the  sensu 
ous  symbol  a  worth  beyond  their  form  and  color.  But 
if  the  new  search  is  not  to  stop  with  the  sensuous  sym 
bol,  but  is  to  go  beyond  to  discover  new  mediums  for 
the  revelation  of  the  eternal  values  of  man,  then,  in 
deed,  will  the  theatre  be  enriched  by  the  new  theories 
of  plastic  and  sensuous  production. 

WHAT  IS  DRAMATIC   TECHNIQUE? 

This  brings  us  to  the  matter  of  dramatic  technique. 
It  seems  to  be  the  habit  of  critics  as  well  as  those  who 
practice  the  art  to  deny  dramatic  technique,  and  to 
hold  that  much  talk  about  technique  is  simply  an  ef 
fort  on  the  part  of  the  knowing  to  mislead  the  igno 
rant,  or  of  the  ignorant  to  deceive  themselves.  To 


76      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

some  extent  the  current  distrust  of  technique  is  to  be 
respected,  as  it  reflects  the  healthy  desire  to  avoid 
meaningless  affectations. 

But  there  is  also  the  tendency  to  despise  technique 
as  a  thing,  which,  if  existent,  is  a  matter  of  tricks  and 
subtleties.  So  a  playwright  is  referred  to  as  a  "mere 
technician,"  and  by  these  words  is  placed  only  higher 
than  the  author  of  positively  bad  plays,  though  the 
fact  that  the  term  is  used  usually  implies  that  the  play 
was  a  success.  Now,  I  believe  that  we  can  show  that 
technique  is  not  a  thing  to  be  despised,  that  it  is  in 
fact  the  gift  that  makes  a  playwright's  work  succeed 
by  whatever  means  he  may  follow,  and  that  the  con 
tempt  for  technique  grows  out  of  a  misunderstanding 
of  what  dramatic  technique  really  is. 

For  after  all,  what  is  technique?  Is  it  not  simply 
the  method  used  by  the  skilled  workman  in  doing  his 
work  when  that  work  is  a  piece  of  individual  creation? 
Technique  is  not  mere  journeyman  craftsmanship. 
It  is  the  expert  manipulation  of  all  the  expedients  of 
the  art  to  the  end  of  the  completest  expression  of 
truth  through  a  substantial  medium.  So  far  from 
being  tricky  and  oversubtle,  the  first  and  greatest  re 
quirement  of  technique  is  directness  and  sincerity. 
He  who  attacks  the  technician  is  either  demanding  of 
an  art  that  which  does  not  belong  to  it,  —  the  story  of 
the  painting,  or  the  sermon  of  the  play,  —  or  he  is  mis 
taking  the  imitative  processes  of  the  journeyman  for 
the  constructive  systems  of  the  creator. 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     77 

There  are  certain  definite  requirements  for  the 
technician  which  become  clear  to  us  in  the  light  of  the 
social  explanation  that  has  been  made  for  drama.  In 
the  first  place,  the  skilled  technician  knows  the  ma 
terials  of  his  art.  If  he  is  a  sculptor,  he  knows  marble 
and  bronze;  if  he  is  a  painter,  he  knows  colors.  And 
if  he  is  a  dramatist,  he  knows  men.  These  things  he 
knows  primarily  and  absolutely.  In  the  second  place, 
the  technician  is  a  trained  observer.  He  has  a  true 
eye.  He  may  not  know  human  nature,  or  flowers  or 
trees  by  the  formulas  which  science  uses,  but  he  does 
know  how  to  observe  clearly  and  truly,  and  to  trans 
fer  what  he  sees  into  the  terms  of  his  material.  In 
other  words,  he  has  the  gift  of  correspondences,  so 
that  he  can  project  the  truth  that  he  has  observed 
into  the  forms  of  his  art. 

Now,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  would  be  his  task 
were  the  substance  of  the  thing  seen  of  the  same  na 
ture  as  his  medium?  Would  not  this  greatly  simplify 
his  work  in  some  directions,  while  even  more  greatly 
complicating  it  in  other  directions?  This  is  the  task  of 
the  dramatic  craftsman.  He  must  express  in  a  human 
medium  his  observations  of  human  beings.  So  he 
must  be  skilled  as  few  are  in  human  nature  itself.  His 
correspondences  are,  indeed,  those  subtle  necessities 
which  arise  when  the  thing  revealed  must  serve  as  its 
own  expressive  medium. 

And  if  there  has  been  any  truth  in  the  argument  we 
have  been  making  so  far,  we  must  believe  that  the 


78      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

dramatist  must  be  a  master  of  his  age.  He  must  be  in 
fact  a  discoverer,  for  no  mere  acceptance  of  current 
formulas  will  keep  him  abreast  of  the  age.  He  must 
divine  and  illuminate  the  implicit  formula.  The  cur 
rent  formula  is,  by  some  strange  paradox,  always  be 
hind  the  time.  By  the  necessities  of  his  medium  and 
of  his  substance  the  dramatist  must  be  an  independ 
ent  thinker.  Looking  out  over  society  he  finds  floating 
abroad  conceptions  that  are  not  formulated  in  text 
books,  or  outlined  in  social  codes,  but  are  diffused 
through  society,  implicit  in  its  processes,  governing 
all  it  does.  And  these  things  that  he  finds  hi  society  it 
is  his  business  to  translate  into  the  formulas  of  his  art, 
that  through  it  there  may  be  turned  to  society  a  re 
flection  of  itself.  With  his  art  he  creates  a  new  world 
of  dramatic  correspondences.  Not  necessarily  by  tak 
ing  thought,  but  by  a  creative  divination  the  drama 
tist  evaluates  the  characteristics  of  an  age  in  terms  of 
representation.  His  world  of  the  stage  is  not  identical 
with  the  world  of  reality,  but  parallels  it  and  corre 
sponds  with  it. 

More  than  this,  the  true  dramatic  technician  mir 
rors  the  soul  of  the  age  by  presenting  all  of  its  com 
plexities  in  ordered  form.  Bending  upon  the  social 
world  a  discerning  eye,  he  not  only  creates  dramatic 
correspondences;  he  also  draws  together  all  the  lines, 
focalizes  the  strains  of  force  and  tendency,  converges 
currents  that  to  the  careless  eye  are  vagrant  and  dis 
connected.  He  makes  of  his  world  of  correspondences 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     79 

a  true  and  yet  an  ordered  thing,  stamped  with  the 
evidences  of  nature's  complexity,  yet  complete  in  it 
self,  presenting  some  of  life's  mystery,  yet  so  clear  that 
he  who  runs  may  read.  The  implicit  laws  of  social 
solidarity  he  makes  explicit  on  the  stage.  In  his  way 
he  is  a  distinct  and  valuable  type  of  social  servant, 
for  he  isolates  the  vague  social  ethics  governing  the 
time  and  in  making  it  dramatic  makes  it  dynamic. 

Like  substance  like  form  is  a  law  of  art.  And  as  the 
substance  of  drama,  based  upon  the  age  which  brings 
it  forth,  is  ruled  by  a  kind  of  slow-moving  destiny, 
what  more  natural  than  that  these  same  laws  should 
be  made  to  apply  to  the  structure  of  the  play  as  well  ? 
Naturalism  grew  out  of  the  application  to  dramatic 
structure  of  those  principles  of  economy,  directness, 
and  scientific  efficiency  that  have  been  the  governing 
principles  of  the  age.  And  the  new  pictorial  art  of 
drama  of  Craig  and  Bakst  and  their  followers,  —  it, 
too,  is  the  outgrowth  of  the  social  background,  of  the 
sensitive  soul  of  the  artist  wearied  of  the  crowd  and 
noise  of  the  market-place,  seeking  in  isolation  and  in 
quiet  the  rarer  fruits  of  beauty.  Naturalism  was  the 
outgrowth  of  a  positivistic  sociology.  The  new  art 
of  the  stage  is  the  outgrowth  of  individualism  —  the 
denial  of  the  social  bond  for  the  sake  of  the  more  in 
tense  pursuit  of  the  stimulation  of  the  senses  and  the 
delights  of  play.  In  either  case  the  inevitable  laws  of 
nature  were  at  work  to  construct  an  art  true  to  the 
fabric  of  the  time  in  content  and  in  form.  And  the 


8o      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

play  is  but  half  understood  when  considered  for  itself 
alone. 

In  this  sense  the  dramatic  technician,  though  he 
may  have  no  original  message  to  propound,  is  serving 
to  give  expression  to  important  truths.  It  may  even 
be  said  that  the  more  the  dramatist  is  willing  to  sink 
his  own  creed  and  programme  in  the  task  of  writing 
plays  as  well  as  he  can,  the  more  likely  he  is  to  perform 
a  great  task.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  first  business  of 
the  dramatist  to  be  a  good  technician.  Rather  than 
emphasize  the  formal  message  of  the  great  drama 
tists,  we  should  say  it  is  the  most  negligible  element 
in  their  work.  Ibsen's  artistic  life  is  absolutely  con 
sistent.  But  it  is  a  consistency  of  growth  and  there 
fore  of  variety.  His  plays  present,  not  the  "message" 
sought  for  by  hundreds  of  clubs,  but  a  series  of  cre 
ative  observations.  Throughout  his  career  he  occu 
pied  one  place,  but  he  faced  many  ways,  and  the 
whole  modern  world  came  under  his  eye.  And  this  is 
as  it  should  be.  Ibsen  himself  was  first  a  dramatist, 
and  his  opinions  grew  out  of  the  specific  dramatic 
alignments  in  which  he  found  himself  successively  in 
terested.  One  would  venture  the  assertion  that  he  was 
really  not  a  thinker  at  all,  but  the  greatest  stimulus 
to  thinking  our  age  has  known.  And  if  this  may  be 
said  of  Ibsen,  it  may  be  said  in  lesser  degree  of  all 
other  dramatists.  They  are  creators  and  not  theo 
rists.  They  create  in  a  world  of  the  imagination  an 
ordered,  apprehensible  fabric  governed  by  the  laws  and 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     81 

instinct  with  the  spirit  of  the  complex  fabric  of  society 
itself. 

The  dramatic  technician  is,  therefore,  both  citizen 
and  artist,  student  of  society  and  imaginative  creator. 
Good  case  could  be  made  for  the  argument  that  the 
dramatist  led  the  sociologist  in  the  discovery  and 
legible  statement  of  the  formulas  of  nineteenth-cen 
tury  social  organization.  Certainly,  in  the  work  of  the 
dramatists  there  is  first  reflected  the  change  from  the 
age  of  enthusiastic  faith  and  upbuilding  to  the  age  of 
intellectual  doubt  and  iconoclasm.  They  led  the  way 
as  theatrical  purveyors  who  knew  how  to  get  theatrical 
value  out  of  contemporary  life.  Yet  who  would  say 
there  was  not  social  value  in  this  technique  ?  Dumas 
in  discovering  the  demi-monde  provided  a  magnificent 
expedient  for  dramatic  clash.  The  value  of  this  dis 
covery  transcends  mere  theatrical  significance  and 
rises  into  the  regions  of  social  imagination.  Isolating 
for  the  sake  of  dramatic  clearness  a  large  social  class, 
Dumas  also  isolated  this  class  in  our  social  thinking. 

The  dictum,  "What  ye  sow,  that  shall  ye  also 
reap/'  taught  long  by  revealed  religion  as  an  abstract 
truth,  adopted  by  Positivism  as  applicable  to  the  so 
cial  fabric  no  less  than  to  the  individual  man,  took  on 
vital  social  force  when  the  modern  dramatist  discov 
ered  in  it  a  late  scientific  correspondent  of  ancient 
fate.  True  as  it  is  in  society,  its  operation  ordinarily 
extends  over  such  long  periods,  and  is  diffused  through 
so  many  separate  events,  that  its  real  force  is  lost 


82      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

because  its  action  cannot  be  followed.  Here  the  dram 
atist  steps  in,  and  drawing  together  the  lines  of  in 
fluence  and  action  symbolizes  in  one  small  group  a 
process  that  in  society  may  be  distributed  over  a 
community,  and  thus  out  of  chaos  there  comes  the 
truth,  "  Social  character  is  social  fate." 

In  the  same  sense  the  cult  of  individualism,  which 
has  been  so  strong  during  the  last  generation  has 
broken  through  many  of  the  social,  intellectual,  and 
religious  conventions  of  the  past,  in  pursuing  the  end 
of  a  free  and  unrestricted  life  for  the  sake  of  the  mere 
joy  of  living.  Strangely  enough,  the  note  of  freedom 
came  into  the  substance  of  plays  long  before  it  ap 
peared  in  the  construction  of  the  play  itself.  For  free 
dom  was,  first  of  all,  a  conception,  an  ideal,  and  so  it 
was  accepted  by  the  dramatist  as  an  ideal  to  be  formu 
lated  and  fought  for.  What  has  been  the  result  of 
this  in  society  and  how  may  it  be  stated  ?  So  confused 
is  the  social  surface,  so  intricate  are  the  lines  of  action 
and  reaction,  that  it  is  difficult  to  draw  out  of  society 
itself  the  lines  which  suggest  the  meaning  of  this  cult 
in  contemporary  life.  Here  again  is  the  opportunity 
of  the  theatrical  craftsman,  plotting  his  lines  with  in 
tricate  care,  working  to  a  centre  in  the  following  out 
of  motives  and  their  consequences,  to  picture  to  us  the 
meaning  in  individual  tragedy  and  social  dissolution 
of  the  "live  your  life"  cult  that  has  been  in  the  air. 

And  after  the  naturalist  comes  another  dramatist, 
to  whom  freedom  is  no  longer  an  ideal  to  aspire  to,  but 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     83 

an  opportunity  to  be  seized.  In  showing  the  love  of 
color,  the  impressionableness,  the  joy  in  play,  the 
desire  of  release  from  burdens  of  the  later  artists, 
he  is  reflecting  the  impulses  of  an  era  of  faith 
after  strenuous  days.  What  may  be  in  store  for  the 
new  era  in  society  and  art  is  not  now  clear.  After  a 
time  of  questioning  and  anxious  thought  there  is  some 
thing  of  a  turning  to  the  frank  acceptance  of  simple 
things;  there  is  dependence  upon  the  support  of 
the  unmotived  and  the  spontaneous.  The  love  of 
rich  color,  not  as  of  the  child  but  of  the  adult,  the  pa 
prika  appeal  to  the  jaded  sense,  the  simplicity  and 
also  the  affectation  of  the  antique,  the  learned  art- 
lessness,  the  love  of  the  grotesque  of  those  who  have 
been  reared  on  the  regular  and  the  reasonable  —  all 
these  are  present  in  the  air  of  the  period  that  follows 
naturalism.  And  in  the  rarefied  air  that  follows  the 
storm  voices  are  raised  in  behalf  of  a  new  art.  It  is  a 
new  mood  of  man.  And  the  artist  is  but  discoverer  of 
that  which  is.  He  but  fills  in  the  design  that  has  been 
sketched  by  a  larger  hand.  And  his  new  design  he 
calls  his  new  technique.  Will  not  it,  too,  be  swept  away 
by  other  social  storms  as  society  gathers  itself  to 
gether  for  another  assault  on  the  gates  of  the  future? 

APPLICATION 

Our  argument  could  not  have  been  followed  so  far 
without  the  reader  discerning  that  it  has  some  par 
ticular  destination.  Certainly,  in  the  case  of  an  art  as 


84      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

concrete  as  is  drama  there  need  be  no  apology  for  its 
application  to  concrete  measures.  A  test  of  the  sin 
cerity  of  the  play  itself  lies  in  its  amenability  to  this 
kind  of  practical  scrutiny.  And  so  we  need  have  no 
hesitation  in  asking  the  question,  "What  are  the  re 
sults  of  the  application  of  the  principles  already  laid 
down  to  the  condition  of  the  American  theatre  to 
day?"  We  shall  in  the  next  chapter  study  somewhat 
closely  the  present  condition  of  the  theatre  in  Amer 
ica.  There  are,  however,  some  general  principles 
which  seem  to  attach  themselves  to  the  argument  we 
have  been  unfolding,  and  as  these  are  not  narrowly 
concerned  with  America,  we  may  well  outline  them 
here. 

We  in  England  and  America  are  just  now  learning 
again,  what  we  had  forgotten  for  two  centuries,  that 
the  substance  of  our  art  shall  be  one  with  the  sub 
stance  of  our  society;  that  the  motives  of  our  art  shall 
be  the  motives  of  our  social  life.  This  law  has  been 
observed  with  more  or  less  closeness  by  Continental 
nations  for  a  longer  time.  The  extent  to  which 
they  have  excelled  us  dramatically  may  be  gauged  by 
their  greater  fidelity  to  this  fundamental  law.  And  to 
day  we  are  learning  a  harder  lesson,  that  of  a  close 
application  to  truth,  studiously  if  it  is  difficult; 
fearlessly  if  it  is  unwelcome.  We  have  been  prone  to  re 
lieve  our  stage  of  the  necessities  of  thought,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  plain  speaking  on  difficult  topics,  on  the 
other  hand.  But  a  new  and  more  truthful  era  seems 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     85 

to  be  at  hand.  This  is  not  entirely  the  result  of  the 
dramatist's  initiative,  though  he  has  had  his  part  in  it. 
It  has  come  from  the  fact  that  a  code  of  more  careful 
and  honest  thinking  is  generally  being  applied  to  the 
consideration  of  all  matters  of  social  import.  The  vic 
tory  for  honest  thinking  has  not  yet  been  won,  but  the 
early  breastworks  have  been  taken.  It  need  hardly  be 
said  that  with  the  collapse  of  the  citadel  of  pampered 
social  falsehood  there  will  have  been  accomplished  the 
great  and  indispensable,  perhaps  the  last,  measure  in 
the  liberation  of  a  vigorous  dramatic  art. 

But  the  movement  is  not  a  narrow  one.  All  over 
the  world  a  dramatic  renascence  is  taking  place,  and 
this  can  but  be  an  indication  of  social  readjustments. 
The  significance  of  these  dramatic  activities  in  these 
days,  when  the  influence  of  the  canons  of  logic  brought 
down  from  the  upper  ranks  in  society  seems  to  have 
served  to  kill  imagination  in  the  lower  ranks,  cannot 
be  overestimated.  As  yet  nothing  has  been  provided 
to  take  the  place  of  that  which  in  another  time  was 
faith  in  the  mysterious  and  unseen.  And  yet  life  is  as 
vital  and  as  interesting  in  our  day  as  ever  it  was.  We 
might  say  that  never  in  history  have  the  broad  inter 
ests  of  participation  in  all  the  world's  projects  been 
distributed  so  broadly  as  they  are  to-day.  Life  itself 
is  a  thing  of  passionate  interest  to  thousands  to-day 
to  whom  new  opportunities  have  taught  new  re 
sponsibilities.  We  are  all  busy  trying  to  pull  our 
selves  over  the  wall  by  our  boot-straps.  Certain  as  we 


86      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

are  to  disappointment  in  many  of  these  efforts,  the 
attempt  itself,  vigorous  as  it  is,  is  good  exercise,  and 
is  food  for  our  souls.  In  such  times  as  these  the 
drama  cannot  be  other  than  a  necessary  art  to  give 
expression  to  the  concrete  social  imaginativeness  of 
the  age. 

What  is  the  lasting  value  which  we  are  to  get  out  of 
our  times?  How  is  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  material 
and  social  and  industrial  improvement  to  be  trans 
muted  into  those  spiritual  terms  which  in  all  times  are 
the  only  ones  which  endure?  I  think  that  the  answer 
to  these  questions  lies  in  art,  and  that  the  particular 
art  for  our  times  is  the  art  of  drama.  If  we  ask  why  it 
is  that  in  these  days  of  tremendous  improvement  in 
all  the  facilities  of  living,  we  are  nevertheless  in  many 
respects  behind  the  standards  of  living  of  the  past,  we 
will  find  that  with  all  our  intellectual  self-conscious 
ness,  we  are  still  lacking  that  cohesive  social  con 
sciousness  which  in  times  past  found  expression  in 
spiritual  adventures  in  the  world  of  imagination,  in  the 
sailing  of  unknown  seas,  in  the  faith  in  fables  and 
folk-lore  and  balladry,  and  in  the  worship  of  a  God  of 
mystery. 

The  reawakened  interest  in  drama  of  these  days 
signifies  a  timid  demand  on  the  part  of  our  people  for 
an  expression  of  themselves  in  terms  of  the  only  meta 
physical  that  they  know;  that  is,  the  social  meta 
physical.  Without  knowing  or  recognizing  the  true 
meaning  of  what  is  going  on,  men  are  struggling  for  a 


SOCIAL  SANCTION  OF  DRAMA     87 

language  congruous  to  their  new  necessities.  Its  first 
syllables  are  vague  and  incoherent  like  those  of  chil 
dren's  speech.  The  important  thing  is  that  socially 
we  are  trying  to  speak,  and  we  are  striving  for  utter 
ance  in  the  form  of  that  art  which  beyond  all  other 
arts  gives  chance  for  social  expression. 

All  this  indicates  that  for  society  a  certain  signifi 
cant  stage  has  been  reached.  This  is  a  stage  partly  of 
reaction,  partly  of  achievement  and  self-discovery. 
It  is  a  reaction  from  the  destructive  and  skeptical 
tendencies  of  a  period  which  was  so  much  convinced 
of  the  falsity  of  the  systems  of  the  past  that  it  had  no 
eye  for  the  promise  of  the  future.  To-day  we  are  very 
much  concerned  with  the  future.  The  coming  day 
represents,  as  well  as  anything  can,  in  the  eyes  of  peo 
ple  in  general,  the  standard  of  the  ideal,  and  the  power 
of  mystery.  These  things  must  speak  through  our 
art.  Never,  perhaps,  with  the  blind  and  childlike  un 
consciousness  of  faith  will  we  again  undertake  the 
building  of  our  epos.  It  will  now  come  as  the  con 
scious  and  assured  creation  of  a  mature  society  in 
which  belief  is  not  an  offering  from  the  gods  to  be 
accepted  without  question,  but  a  truth  to  be  seized 
and  weighed.  The  beauty  of  the  new  art  will  not  be 
the  beauty  of  the  wonder  of  the  unknown,  but  of  the 
wonder  of  the  known. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PRESENT   SITUATION  OF  THE   STAGE  IN  AMERICA 

ONE  thing  is  soon  discovered  when  we  begin  to 
study  the  present  situation  of  dramatic  art  in  Amer 
ica,  and  that  is  that  its  problems  and  most  interesting 
developments  are  by  no  means  limited  to  the  theatre. 
It  will  probably  be  found,  when  the  history  of  present 
movements  is  written,  that  the  most  important  de 
velopments  took  place  outside  of  the  theatre  alto 
gether,  in  a  society  that  had  suddenly  become  acutely 
conscious  of  the  necessity  of  exercise,  and  was  turning 
to  the  drama  as  the  most  available  of  the  arts  upon 
which  its  forces  could  be  spent  and  by  which  its  leisure 
could  be  enriched.  Largely  as  a  result  of  this  interest 
on  the  part  of  people  in  general,  the  present  is  an  era 
of  rapid  and  radical  change  in  the  theatre,  and  the 
theatre  itself,  as  an  institution,  has  been  the  centre  of 
a  hue  and  cry  of  random  and  irrational  attack. 

A  calmer  judgment  will  show  that  it  is  not  in  this 
spirit  that  better  things  will  come.  The  best  thing 
that  can  be  accomplished  by  the  present  unrest  is  to 
direct  attention  to  the  abuses.  The  public  cannot  di 
rectly  reconstruct  the  theatre;  that  will  be  the  work 
of  experts  who  will  work  under  the  force  of  public 
opinion.  Inexpert  criticism  is  almost  certain  to  be 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA          89 

superficial  and  destructive.  Such  criticism  is  prone  to 
attack  as  the  cause  of  a  debased  state  of  dramatic  art 
instruments  that  are  only  factors  in  it,  and  to  demand 
the  abolishment  of  some  of  the  most  useful  institu 
tions  of  the  stage.  A  judicious  mind  can  see  that  even 
the  weakest  features  of  present  theatrical  organiza 
tion  are  serving  some  good  purpose,  and  that  we  have 
nothing  to  hope  for  from  a  blind  and  hasty  revolution 
in  dramatic  procedure.  Not  seldom  it  happens  that 
the  things  that  are  prophesied  for  a  distant  future  by 
the  visionary  are  taking  place  as  a  fact  in  the  hands 
of  the  workmen  of  the  present. 

One  thing  that  is  particularly  blamed  in  some  cir 
cles  is  what  is  called  "professionalism."  The  "pro 
fession"  of  the  theatre  has  been  blamed  for  its  low 
ideals,  its  pandering  to  the  crowd,  its  conservatism  in 
the  face  of  demand  for  change.  These  charges  are  un 
just.  There  need  be  no  fear  of  professionalism  in  the 
mind  of  one  who  studies  the  way  things  have  come 
to  pass  in  dramatic  art.  Professionalism  is  in  fact  an 
expedient  by  which  the  business  of  the  theatre  has 
been  carried  on.  Some  such  practical  expedient  is  par 
ticularly  necessary  in  these  days  of  widening  contacts 
between  the  art  of  the  stage  and  the  people.  If  stage 
professionalism  has  been  subject  to  abuses,  these  have 
been  no  more  serious  than  the  abuses  that  spring  up 
in  connection  with  other  highly  specialized  activities, 
such  as  teaching  and  preaching,  for  instance. 

It  seems  to  me  that  a  fair  statement  of  the  debt  the 


90      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

world  owes  to  its  professionals  of  the  stage  should  in 
justice  be  made.  At  the  start  there  is  necessary  a  re 
statement  of  the  standards  by  which  the  so-called 
" professional"  and  "amateur"  spirits  are  judged. 
In  many  quarters  it  seems  to  be  presumed  that  there 
is  some  essential  divergence  of  ideal  between  these. 
Each  looks  upon  the  other  with  suspicion  or  contempt, 
the  professional  supposing  the  amateur  is  a  mere  pre 
tender,  the  amateur  easily  assuming  that  the  pro 
fessional  prostitutes  his  art  for  money.  Both  of  these 
views  are  false  and  unreasonable.  Moreover,  they  are 
mutually  destructive.  By  any  fair  judgment  the  pro 
fessional  and  the  amateur  represent  two  cooperative 
and  sympathetic  pursuits  of  the  same  end.  No  art  can 
exist  in  health  without  at  the  same  time  a  vital  spirit 
of  professionalism  to  supply  the  sinews,  and  a  hearty 
spirit  of  the  amateur  to  supply  the  spiritual  support. 
It  is  a  mark  of  the  ill-health  of  drama  for  a  century  or 
more  that  the  functions  of  both  of  these  classes  have 
been  misunderstood. 

To  ascribe  to  the  professional  a  selfish  spirit  is  on  the 
one  hand  as  unjust,  as  on  the  other  it  is  to  accuse  the 
amateur  of  being  a  dilettante  and  a  pretender.  To 
the  amateurs  of  the  arts  we  owe  all  that  support  that 
comes  from  the  unconscious  surrender  to  an  art  that 
one  cannot  practice.  Art  is  always  carried  high  in  the 
affections  of  its  amateurs.  It  is  a  mistake  to  presume 
that  the  amateur  may  not  be  well  informed  in  his  art, 
that  he  may  not  even  now  and  then  practice  it  accept- 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA         91 

ably.  Through  his  peculiar  interest  in  his  art  his  taste 
is  freed  from  many  of  the  considerations  that  fret  the 
practicing  artist.  What  the  amateur  may  mean  to  an 
art  is  revealed  when  we  notice  that  when  an  art  is 
vigorous  and  healthy  it  has  the  hearty  support  of  a 
strong  amateur  spirit.  All  great  artistic  work,  in  so 
far  as  it  has  any  outer  stimulus,  is  done  for  the  sake  of 
the  amateurs  of  that  art.  It  is  they  only  who  can  re 
pay  in  discrimination  and  sympathy  the  careful  toil 
of  the  artist. 

But  does  not  the  very  defense  we  make  of  the  ama 
teur  indicate  that  his  is  not  the  primary  position? 
Strangely  enough,  it  is  not  to-day  the  amateur  who 
needs  defense.  In  reacting  from  the  rigors  of  profes 
sionalism  we  have  assumed  that  to  the  amateur  be 
longed  all  the  merit,  and  the  professional  has  borne 
the  brunt  of  blame  for  conditions  that  are  not  of  his 
making.  What  is  it  we  owe  to  him?  In  my  opinion  we 
are  obliged  to  him  for  the  existence  of  the  theatre  to 
day  with  such  glories  as  still  attach  to  it.  He  it  is  who 
provides  that  skilled  and  technical  mastery  of  the  arts 
from  which  come  our  stable  standards.  He  has  sup 
ported  his  art  in  fair  days  and  foul.  The  amateur  de 
serts  in  time  of  decline.  It  is  the  professional,  too,  who 
creates  for  art  the  traditions  that  are  handed  down 
from  age  to  age.  And  erecting  these  traditions  into 
institutions  he  supports  them  and  battles  for  them. 
He  is  the  conservating  force  in  art.  The  stage  has  most 
reason  to  be  grateful  to  its  professionals,  for  of  all  the 


92      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

arts  the  stage  most  works  with  shifting  materials. 
In  times  that  are  impatient  of  restraint,  ready  always 
to  identify  the  better  with  the  newer  thing,  and  the 
best  with  the  iconoclastic,  the  professionalism  of  the 
stage  has  been  the  one  bulwark  of  a  conservative  art. 

So  while  the  professional  spirit  may  be  accused  of 
magnifying  form  at  the  expense  of  spirit,  and  of  cling 
ing  to  the  old  because  it  is  the  tried,  it  was  this  spirit 
that  kept  the  stage  alive  through  bitter  days.  By  it 
such  results  as  were  accomplished  were  secured.  And  ' 
when  society  had  so  far  found  itself  as  to  enforce  a 
better  dramatic  expression,  this,  too,  was  secured 
largely  through  the  cooperation  of  professional  writ 
ers,  actors,  and  managers. 

Professionalism,  therefore,  while  not  perfect,  is  a 
characteristic  instrument  of  present-day  society  in  its 
relation  with  dramatic  art.  Such  faults  as  it  has  it 
possesses  in  common  with  all  the  machines  of  man's 
social  life,  which  operate  by  the  counsel  of  compromise 
rather  than  perfection.  A  similar  but  not  quite  as 
strong  a  case  can  be  made  for  Commercialism,  which 
is  sometimes  identified  with  Professionalism.  But 
commercialism  is  quite  another  thing.  At  the  outset 
we  must  admit  that  the  commercial  principle  practi 
cally  represents  society's  ways  of  getting  things  done 
in  these  days.  It  is  the  system  by  which  support  is 
secured  for  all  good  things  that  are  not  matters  of 
state  grant  or  private  benevolence.  The  sincere  art- 
lover  has  not  yet  come  to  the  point  —  in  America,  at 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA          93 

least  —  at  which  he  can  look  with  contentment  on  the 
prospect  of  either  one  of  these  latter  undertaking  the 
support  of  his  art.  And  this  hesitation  to  place  art  in 
the  hands  of  the  state  or  of  charity  is  at  bottom  a 
healthy  thing.  It  indicates  the  demand  that  democ 
racy  itself  shall  show  itself  to  be  worthy  before  it  is 
endowed  with  the  highest  responsibilities,  and  also, 
perhaps,  the  feeling  that  the  real  utilitarian  value  of 
drama  is  a  thing  that  is  not  to  be  ignored.  This  waiting 
spirit  has  compelled  in  the  case  of  music  and  painting 
a  kind  of  modified  commercialism  which  is  at  best  a 
compromise,  and  it  has  pressed  the  theatre  over  com 
pletely  into  the  commercial  market-place.  And  to 
many  of  the  features  of  this  state  of  the  art  no  friend 
of  the  drama  can  be  reconciled.  Let  us  see  whether 
some  of  the  worst  features  of  this  system  are  necessary, 
whether,  indeed,  such  commercialism  as  we  have  in 
the  theatre  to-day  is  an  enlightened  commercialism. 

Granting  that  commercialism  is  good  in  its  place, 
that  according  to  the  economic  system  of  our  time  it 
may  be  necessary  to  compel  art  to  adapt  to  a  commer 
cial  regime,  what  is  the  chief  case  against  commercial 
ism  in  the  theatre?  Simply  this,  that,  whereas  the 
commercial  system  of  the  theatre  was  invented  as  a 
means  of  support  of  the  drama,  it  has  changed  places, 
and  the  drama  has  been  compelled  to  support  the  sys 
tem.  In  truth,  this  may  be  the  chief  indictment  of 
commercialism  the  world  over,  that  what  was  con 
trived  as  a  means  of  the  securing  of  life  has  come  to 


94      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

subsist  upon  life.  This  charge  is  particularly  heavy 
in  the  case  of  the  arts.  While  labor  may  live  for  a  time 
chained  to  the  car  of  money,  art  enchained  dies  im 
mediately. 

No  one  will  deny  that  the  first  application  of  the 
modern  commercial  system  to  the  stage  was  a  benefit. 
In  perfecting  the  organization  of  the  theatre,  in  free 
ing  the  author  and  player  from  penury,  it  raised  the 
theatre  to  the  plane  of  a  self-respecting  profession. 
But  it  did  not  stop  there.  It  was  learned  that  what 
had  been  a  precarious  trade  of  half-vagabondish 
players  could  under  organization  be  magnified  to  a 
tremendous  business  of  purveying  entertainment  to 
the  appetites  of  newly  awakened  millions.  Long  ago 
all  purpose  was  forgotten  other  than  the  capitalizing 
of  entertainment  and  art  in  the  same  way  as  transpor 
tation  and  oil  are  capitalized.  The  result  has  been 
deep-seated  both  as  to  society  and  art. 

The  commercial  system  has  many  things  to  answer 
for,  but  they  are  not  the  things  for  which  it  is  gener 
ally  called  to  account.  For  one  thing  its  crimes  are 
not  so  simple  as  those  which  have  been  charged  to  it. 
They  are  more  insidious,  not  so  concrete,  and  by  no 
means  so  easily  remedied.  In  naming  the  sins  of  the 
commercial  system  the  stock  catalogue  is,  the  long- 
run  system,  the  collapse  of  the  stock  company,  the 
star  system,  the  type  system  of  acting.  To  tell  the 
truth,  these  are  not  unmixed  evils.  Furthermore,  they 
are  more  products  of  the  new  social  arrangements 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA         95 

of  our  time  than  of  any  system  of  management,  and 
as  such  are  to  be  defended  rather  than  decried.  In  the 
day  of  rapid  transportation,  of  easy  communication, 
of  general  education,  and  of  a  universal  demand  for 
centralization  and  economy,  these  things  would  have 
followed  in  any  case.  No  one  would  return  to  the  old 
stock  system  if  he  could,  and  the  "  long  run  "  is  now 
and  always  was  a  matter  of  supply  and  demand.  If  a 
thing  is  good  there  is  every  reason  why  as  many  as 
possible  should  see  it.  Nothing  would  be  gained  by 
attacking  the  "  long  run  "  as  such;  the  conditions  that 
entail  it  should  be  changed. 

The  commercial  system  has  more  to  answer  for 
than  this.  Its  chief  sin  is  that  it  has  transformed  the 
theatre  into  an  institution  of  fictitious  values.  The 
specifications  of  this  are  many  and  explicit.  They 
have  to  do  with  the  effect  upon  the  theatre  itself  as  an 
institution,  and  also  that  negative  effect  which  follows 
in  a  society  which  has  no  sane  and  healthy  outlet  for 
the  activities  of  its  leisure.  Naturally,  the  first  of 
these,  being  more  specific,  will  more  repay  study.  The 
second  must  be  taken  on  trust,  but  its  significance  can 
be  read  in  more  than  one  social  record. 

Let  us  see  how  it  is  that  the  commercial  system  has 
made  of  the  theatre  an  institution  of  fictitious  values. 
Chiefly  this  has  been  done  through  the  emphasis  that 
has  been  laid  on  the  commodity  attributes  of  the 
theatre.  To-day  the  chief  energy  of  the  theatre  is  de 
voted  to  the  selling  of  the  wares.  And  all  the  allure- 


96      CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

merits  of  merchandising  are  used  to  stimulate  trade. 
The  result  of  this  has  been  to  set  upon  art  a  commer 
cial  standard  that  does  not  belong  to  it  and  that  it  can 
ill  afford  to  carry.  There  follows  an  attempted  mar 
riage  between  art  and  business  which  always  results 
in  the  subjugation  of  the  more  delicate  party  to  the 
contract.  The  fictitious  standards  which  are  com 
pelled  by  the  commercial  system  have  their  influence 
everywhere.  They  have  introduced  a  new  standard 
by  which  a  play  is  to  be  judged,  the  standard  of  "ex 
pense."  Of  course,  it  is  far  easier  to  judge  a  play  by 
the  money  that  has  been  spent  upon  it  than  by  the 
other  more  indefinable  standards.  In  this  way  atten 
tion  has  been  directed  to  those  things  which  are  the 
mere  appurtenances  of  drama,  the  facilities,  the  build 
ings,  the  dressing,  and  the  expensive  production.  It 
is  safe  to  say  that  a  large  portion  of  what  is  now  spent 
in  the  production  of  plays  is  spent  on  something  other 
than  the  real  and  veritable  art  itself,  that  the  expen 
diture  is  really  an  expenditure  in  non-essentials. 

This  fictitious  standard  of  expense  is  first  seen  in 
the  theatre  building  itself.  It  is  now  necessary  that 
our  theatres  shall  occupy  as  nearly  as  possible  the 
central  portion  of  the  town;  that  they  shall  be  acces 
sible  from  all  parts  of  the  city;  and  that  a  plant  that 
is  used  only  a  few  hours  during  the  day  shall  pay  divi 
dends  upon  a  real  estate  and  building  investment 
which  in  other  businesses  would  be  supported  through 
the  income  of  all  the  daylight  hours.  It  was  not  so 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA         97 

in  the  days  of  the  giants.  Then,  when  business  was 
subordinated  to  the  social  or  the  art  function,  people 
went  to  their  theatres  rather  than  waited  until  their 
theatres  lured  them.  The  amphitheatres  of  Greece 
and  Rome  were  sometimes  outside  the  city.  Shake 
speare's  plays  were  presented  outside  the  city  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  Thames.  But  not  to  depend  upon 
support  from  the  past  the  example  of  the  amusement 
park  and  the  baseball  pavilion  prove  that  there  is  no 
need  for  a  centrally  located  plant.  The  logic  of  the 
situation  in  our  cities  is  all  against  crowding  all  the 
theatres  into  one  restricted  and  expensive  theatre 
district.  If  the  theatre  were  not  dependent  upon  fic 
titious  values  a  theatre  building  could  serve  the  neigh 
borhood  instead  of  the  municipality.  Indeed,  the 
movement  for  outlying  theatres  is  strongly  on  the  way. 
In  advertising,  too,  we  find  revealed  the  fictitious 
character  of  present  dramatic  production.  In  the  de 
velopment  of  paid  advertising  for  the  exploiting  of  the 
business  of  the  theatre,  and  in  its  twin-sister,  press- 
agent  puffery,  we  have  the  most  efficient  means  of 
spreading  through  society  those  artificial  values  upon 
which  the  business  of  the  theatre  has  lately  existed. 
In  the  mystery  thrown  about  the  private  lives  of 
artists,  the  inflated  popular  estimates  of  the  money 
value  of  acting  and  playmaking,  in  the  false  standards 
of  expense  applied  to  details  in  production  and  scen 
ery,  we  have  abundant  witness  that  while  the  business 
of  the  theatre  expands  the  art  declines. 


98       CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

We  are  by  no  means  contending  against  the  self-sup 
port  of  the  drama.  On  the  contrary,  we  believe  thor 
oughly  that  drama  should  be  self-supporting,  and 
that  it  could  be  self-supporting  through  all  its  grades 
from  lowest  to  highest  in  any  system  in  which  the  in 
come  of  the  theatre  went  back  into  its  support.  It  is 
the  artificiality  of  the  system  against  which  we  write; 
its  compelling  of  the  art  to  carry  the  trade,  rather 
than  the  trade  to  carry  the  art.  There  is  no  good  and 
necessary  thing  that  cannot  be  freely  and  independ 
ently  self-supporting  if  its  organization  is  so  directed. 
The  Church  can  hardly  be  called  a  charity.   It  is  a 
self-supporting  organization  that  pays  its  way  and 
gives  value  received.  But  what  happens  when  religion 
is  capitalized  for  the  sake  of  profit?    Countless  ex 
amples  have  shown  that  there  is  erected  a  tremendous 
capitalized  institution,  but  that  the  Church  of  souls 
decays.  That  spiritual  death  that  comes  to  commer 
cialized  religion  comes  likewise  to  a  commercialized 
art,  and  for  the  same  reason.  Let  us  not  suppose  that 
art  cannot  support  itself.   Everi  the  higher  forms  of 
dramatic  art  will  secure  a  sufficient  support  when  they 
are  relieved  of  the  weight  of  inordinate  tribute  to 
business,  and  are  presented  before  men  and  women 
in  no  fictitious  guise. 

If  we  study  in  some  detail  the  present  condition  of 
the  stage  in  America  we  may  see  in  what  way  the 
argument  we  have  been  developing  works  out  in  prac 
tice.  Surveying  the  whole  field  of  dramatic  entertain- 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA         99 

ment  we  find,  as  we  would  expect,  that  drama  is  or 
ganized  all  up  and  down  the  line  to  serve  the  differ 
ent  classes  of  intelligence  and  taste  represented  in  the 
community.  Naturally,  the  theatre  is  most  active  at 
points  of  the  most  widely  distributed  appeal.  But 
strange  to  say,  this  is  not  the  point  at  which  it  is  most 
highly  organized,  or  at  which  it  pays  the  largest  trib 
ute.  Taking  the  situation  by  and  large,  the  heaviest 
organization  and  the  highest  "overhead  expense"  are 
found  in  the  case  of  the  so-called  "legitimate"  drama, 
or  the  drama  of  narrowest  popular  appeal.  It  is  here 
that  the  faults  of  organization  and  commercial  man 
agement  are  most  glaring  both  in  their  business  and 
art  aspects.  And  this  type  of  play  is  compelled  to 
bear  the  largest  burden  of  fictitious  values,  and  to  pay 
dividends  that  are  not  returned  to  the  art  side  of  the 
business. 

Let  us  look  at  three  types  of  dramatic  entertain 
ment,  representing  three  orders  of  appeal,  and  varied 
systems  of  management.  The  first  of  these  is  the  mo 
tion-picture  theatre.  Of  all  forms  of  theatric  enter 
tainment  this  has  by  all  means  the  broadest  social 
bottom.  In  ten  years  the  motion  picture  has  practi 
cally  displaced  many  of  the  older  forms  of  entertain 
ment,  notably  the  cheap  melodrama,  and  has  made 
precarious  the  situation  of  musical  comedy.  Now,  the 
writer  is  by  no  means  of  those  who  consider  the  mo 
tion-picture  show  an  unmixed  blessing.  There  is  every 
reason  to  hope  that  within  a  few  years  this  form  of 


ioo    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

entertainment  may  either  be  discarded  for  another  of 
higher  type,  or  that  of  itself  it  may  evolve  into  some 
thing  better.  But  for  the  present  it  must  be  said  that 
the  motion-picture  entertainment  is  the  one  form  of 
public  amusement  whose  growth  has  been  absolutely 
natural  and  unstimulated.  Without  aid  from  adver 
tising,  or  the  campaigning  of  business  organization,  it 
sprang  up  within  ten  years  in  answer  to  an  unques 
tioned  social  demand.  Recruited  first  from  the  audi 
ences  belonging  to  other  types  of  entertainment,  it 
soon  began  to  create  a  new  audience  both  in  villages 
and  cities.  The  daily  audience  of  the  motion-picture 
show  is  now  throughout  the  country  at  least  ten  mil 
lion.  In  other  words  every  day  one  tenth  of  our  popu 
lation  is  to  be  found  in  the  motion-picture  show  hall. 
Its  patronage  is  now  six  times  as  large  as  the  daily 
audiences  of  all  other  kinds  of  entertainment  com 
bined.  It  is  largely  a  family  audience  and  is  recruited 
from  the  community.  To-day  there  are  fifteen  thou 
sand  theatres  of  this  type  in  the  country,  and  this 
may  be  increased  to  twenty  thousand  before  the  end 
of  another  year. 

The  importance  of  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  was 
the  result  of  natural  and  popular  growth.  There  was 
no  fictitious  allurement  to  mislead  or  compel.  No 
form  of  entertainment  has  arisen  in  years  that  so 
thoroughly  represents  what  the  great  mass  of  people 
want  as  does  the  motion-picture  show.  It  came  just 
in  time  to  serve  as  an  outlet  for  a  restless  and  over- 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        101 

crowded  urban  life.  And  so  far  the  organization  of  the 
motion-picture  theatre  has  been  of  that  type  that  in 
volves  fewest  steps  and  least  handling  between  maker 
and  consumer.  The  overhead  charges  are  low,  the 
purely  fancy  expenses  are  practically  none.  As  far  as 
the  people  of  the  town  are  concerned,  the  theatre  is  a 
local  institution.  No  one  can  feel  that  an  unreason 
able  amount  of  his  five  or  ten  cents  is  sent  away  to 
serve  some  purpose  that  is  not  represented  in  the  pro 
duction  itself.  It  is  true  that  in  recent  years  big  busi 
ness  has  taken  over  the  motion-picture  field,  and  has 
begun  to  exploit  it  by  all  the  well-known  methods 
of  trade.  To  the  extent  that  this  is  the  case  the  mo 
tion-picture  business  has  already  begun  to  show  signs 
of  ill-health.  An  artificially  stimulated  taste  inevitably 
flags,  and  witness  to  this  process  is  not  wanting  in  the 
field  of  the  motion  picture. 

Perhaps  the  motion-picture  entertainment  will  be 
of  short  duration.  Such  a  question  enters  the  field  of 
profitless  speculation.  Certainly,  there  are  some  con 
siderations  that  point  to  the  fear  that  it  may  not  al 
ways  serve  the  natural  social  function  that  it  has 
served  from  the  first.  By  its  very  cheapness  it  is 
creating  an  entertainment  habit  among  people.  Par 
ticularly  in  the  village  the  tendency  is  to  exchange  the 
spontaneous  games  of  the  green  and  the  meadow  for 
the  less  healthy  interests  of  the  closed  room.  On  the 
side  of  social  solidarity  the  motion  picture  suffers  in 
comparison  with  the  other  arts  of  the  theatre.  In 


102     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

particular  it  lacks  the  human  and  social  appeal.  In  all 
other  forms  of  dramatic  art  there  has  been  shown  a 
hearty  sense  of  participation  between  players  and 
audience.  No  such  reaction  is  possible  in  the  case  of 
the  moving-picture  show.  The  sense  of  mass  in  the 
audience  is  never  appealed  to.  No  other  aggregation 
of  people  remains  so  thoroughly  unamalgamated  as 
the  audience  in  a  moving-picture  room.  From  these 
points  of  view  the  motion-picture  entertainment 
hardly  satisfies  the  requirements  of  naturalness  and 
social  constructiveness  that  were  laid  down  in  the 
preceding  chapter.  But  when  all  has  been  said,  it  still 
remains  that  the  motion-picture  show  represents  a  ver 
itable  expression  of  present-day  society  and  is  within 
its  scope  serving  a  useful  social  function. 

Doctrinaires  are  often  pursued  by  the  fear  that 
lower  forms  of  art  enter  into  competition  with  higher 
forms  of  art  and  drive  them  from  the  field.  That  is 
not  the  case  if  both  have  a  fair  field,  and  if  the  higher 
art  is  not  compelled  to  carry  a  handicap.  Given  natu 
ral  processes  all  along  the  line,  each  form  can  prosper 
within  its  field.  Naturally,  the  lower  type  of  art  makes 
more  noise  and  is  more  distributed,  because  there  are 
more  people  who  want  it.  But  as  well  expect  the 
wealthy  to  discard  the  finer  cloths  because  calico  is 
cheaper,  as  to  expect  the  cultivated  and  intelligent  to 
select  the  lower  art  because  it  is  the  more  popular.  In 
both  cases  the  decision  is  made  by  reference  only  to 
availability  and  the  quality  of  the  wares.  If  anything 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        103 

is  needed  to  convince  one  of  the  truth  of  this,  a  study 
of  the  situation  of  the  vaudeville  show  in  comparison 
with  the  motion-picture  show  will  be  sufficient  evi 
dence.  Of  all  the  forms  that  one  would  expect  to  be 
seriously  hurt  by  the  motion  picture,  the  vaudeville 
or  variety  theatre  would  be  the  first.  We  would  per 
haps  grant  that  the  variety  show  is  higher  in  quality 
than  the  motion-picture  show.  Certainly,  it  is  the 
form  that  most  competes  in  type  of  appeal  and  inter 
est,  and  it  appeals  generally  to  patrons  of  about  the 
same  order.  Yet  during  the  period  of  growth  of  the 
motion-picture  show  the  vaudeville  theatre  has  had 
the  greatest  expanse  in  its  career.  Vaudeville  theatres 
have  multiplied  only  less  rapidly  than  the  smaller 
picture  theatres.  More  than  that,  during  this  period 
greater  strides  have  been  made  in  raising  the  stand 
ards  of  variety  entertainment  than  ever  before.  The 
growth  cannot  be  ascribed  entirely  to  the  growth  of 
the  entertainment  habit.  According  to  the  principle 
of  the  destructive  competition  of  the  lower,  this  would 
have  been  satisfied  by  the  motion-picture  theatre. 

The  answer  to  this  question  goes  back  to  the  atti 
tude  taken  by  variety  managers,  and  the  system  of 
organization  provided  for  the  accomplishment  of 
their  work.  It  was  the  managers  of  the  variety  theatres 
who  first  learned  how  to  eliminate  the  fictitious  fac 
tors  from  the  business  of  the  theatre,  and  made  it,  as 
nearly  as  may  be  in  a  selfish  world,  a  system  of  pur 
veying  to  an  entertainment-seeking  crowd  by  giving 


104     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

the  crowd  what  it  had  a  right  to  demand  under  the 
better  interpretation  of  this  order  of  amusement.  It 
was  the  vaudeville  manager  who  first  broke  away 
from  the  crowded  theatre  district  in  the  central  part 
of  his  city  and  placed  his  theatre  on  a  side  street  and 
in  the  suburbs  of  the  city.  By  so  doing  he  brought  his 
theatre  nearer  to  his  clientele  by  encouraging  the 
neighborhood  theatre,  a  natural  institution  in  itself. 
Involved  in  this  was  the  release  from  the  necessity  of 
high  expense  in  advertising.  The  average  vaudeville 
theatre  does  not  spend  anything  like  the  money  on 
advertising  that  the  legitimate  theatre  spends.  In 
the  matter  of  prices  it  has  been  the  policy  of  the  man 
agers  to  keep  the  admission  fees  as  low  as  possible. 
And  they  try  to  give  as  much  as  possible  for  the 
money.  When  necessary  in  order  to  lower  the  price, 
they  shorten  the  programme  and  win  by  a  rapid  turn 
ing  over  of  the  wares.  Most  significant  of  all  it  has 
been  the  policy  of  these  managers  continually  to  im 
prove  the  programme.  And  this  has  been  done  in  no 
idealistic  vein,  but  according  to  the  dictates  of  an  alert 
business  sense,  that  has  encouraged  them  always  to  be 
on  the  lookout  for  the  new  thing,  and  continually  to 
try  to  keep  abreast  of  improving  standards  of  taste 
among  the  audiences.  To-day  the  people  are  crowding 
the  vaudeville  theatres  to  see  at  least  a  dozen  excellent 
players  of  first  rank  whom  a  short-sighted  business 
policy  has  driven  from  the  legitimate  stage.  This  will 
hardly  indicate  that  the  people  will  not  support  high 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        105 

art  of  the  theatre.  They  will  support  it  when  it  is 
conducted  according  to  sane  principles  of  business,  and 
they  will  not  be  diverted  from  support  on  account 
of  the  slightly  lower  caste  of  the  variety  theatre. 

The  influx  of  some  of  the  best  actors  of  the  legiti 
mate  stage  into  vaudeville  has  a  real  significance.  It 
signifies  their  flight  from  an  ill-managed  to  a  well- 
managed  corps  of  theatres.  It  means  the  overflow  from 
a  legitimate  theatre  which  a  false  business  system  has 
overrun  with  stars  into  a  theatre  with  a  broader  so 
cial  bottom.  Then,  too,  there  are  some  respects  in 
which  the  vaudeville  theatre  offers  to  the  sincere  art 
ist  of  the  stage  better  opportunity  for  the  pursuit  of 
his  own  ideals  of  dramatic  art.  For  one  thing,  it  can 
and  must  tell  simple  stories.  The  demand  to  "fill  the 
evening"  at  whatever  expense  of  padding  and  irrele 
vancy  that  is  forced  on  the  legitimate  stage  is  re 
placed  by  the  demand  for  an  action  that  is  quick  and 
to  the  point.  On  the  side  of  artistry,  where  the  vaude 
ville  theatre  touches  art  at  all,  it  is  not  unlikely  to 
give  an  encouraging  reception  to  the  genuine,  the 
simple,  and  the  good-natured.  Here  is  no  room  for 
the  falsehood  of  sentiment  or  of  intellectualism.  And 
in  encouraging  the  one-act  play  the  vaudeville  theatre 
has  been  fortunately  in  accord  with  the  trend  of  events 
in  dramatic  writing. 

In  one  further  respect  of  organization  the  vaude 
ville  theatre  is  more  fortunate  than  the  organization 
of  the  legitimate  theatre.  This  is  in  respect  of  the 


106     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

smaller  units  upon  which  its  circuits  are  maintained. 
Unlike  the  legitimate  theatre,  which  is  controlled  al 
together  from  the  distant  centre  of  New  York,  the 
vaudeville  theatre  is  administered  in  a  series  of  prov 
inces  all  of  which  look  to  New  York,  it  is  true,  but 
each  of  which  is  independent  in  its  field.  It  has  been 
upon  this  provincial  system  that  the  vaudeville  theatre 
has  come  to  its  highest  efficiency.  From  San  Francisco, 
Denver,  and  Chicago  have  radiated  circuits  which 
have  done  much  to  create  an  organization  close  to  the 
social  heart  of  the  province.  In  this  respect  of  serving 
an  apprehensible  social  unit  the  vaudeville  theatre 
has  been  administratively  in  advance  of  its  more 
aristocratic  colleague. 

If  we  apply  to  the  vaudeville  theatre  the  tests  of 
naturalness  and  social  constructiveness  that  have 
been  suggested,  we  see  features  a-plenty  in  which  its 
productions  do  not  satisfy  the  test.  But  the  important 
thing  is  that  it  is  on  the  high  road,  that  its  organiza 
tion  is  sufficiently  veracious  and  well  founded  to  per 
mit  it  to  go  straight  forward  to  better  things.  And  the 
managers  and  actors  are  discovering  for  themselves 
that  some  of  the  old  features  of  the  varieties  must  be 
eliminated  in  favor  of  other  and  more  healthful  forms 
of  entertainment.  As  we  showed  in  a  former  chapter, 
the  whole  progress  of  drama  has  been  away  from  the 
purely  individualistic,  in  which  it  is  concerned  with 
feats  of  personal  strength  and  skill,  toward  the  higher 
activities  that  are  bom  of  a  conscious  social  life.  It 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        107 

was  with  the  individualistic,  or  at  least  unsocial,  ac 
tivities  that  the  varieties  were  first  concerned.  The 
animal  show  and  the  feats  of  athletic  and  gymnastic 
strength  and  prowess  served  as  the  centre  around 
which  the  vaudeville  revolved,  and  these  are  quite 
lacking  in  appeal  to  the  social  sense.  A  careful  study 
on  the  part  of  managers  of  the  demands  of  the  crowd 
has  taught  them  that  to-day  the  appeal  of  these  un 
social  entertainments  is  certainly  diminishing.  They 
are  taking  every  year  relatively  a  smaller  place  in  the 
variety  programme,  and  their  place  is  being  taken  by 
the  more  highly  socialized  amusements.  The  tendency 
on  the  part  of  performers  in  these  acts,  crude  as  it  is, 
to  protect  their  act  by  an  appeal  to  the  comic  sense  is 
but  in  itself  a  recognition  of  the  unconscious  demand 
of  the  audience  that  the  entertainment  shall  have  some 
social  basis. 

In  respect  of  a  due  regard  for  the  principles  of  social 
constructiveness,  it  may  be  said  that  of  all  forms  of 
theatrical  entertainment,  the  only  ones  which  formally 
undertake  to  protect  the  standards  of  social  health  are 
those  forms  which  lie  at  the  foot  of  the  column.  In  the 
acceptance  by  the  motion-picture  producers  of  a 
workable  system  of  moral  censorship,  and  in  the  pro 
mulgation  by  the  vaudeville  managers  of  rigid  rules  in 
matters  of  morals  and  good  taste,  there  is  revealed  an 
enlightened  common  sense  that  for  some  reason  has 
not  been  characteristic  of  the  business  management 
of  the  legitimate  type  of  entertainment.  One  need  not 


io8     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

be  accused  of  defending  the  vaudeville  theatre  as  a 
temple  of  art  if  he  says  that  it  is,  in  view  of  its  func 
tion,  the  best  organization  of  the  theatre  in  America 
to-day,  and  that,  as  a  model  of  making  the  system 
support  the  play  rather  than  compelling  the  play  to 
support  an  expensive  system,  it  may  be  held  up  for 
the  emulation  of  those  theatre  managers  who  deal 
with  the  higher  class  of  art. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  legitimate  theatre  so 
called.  Enough  has  been  said  to  show  the  writer's 
opinion  that  the  organization  of  the  theatre  at  its  high 
est  point  is  unnatural,  artificial,  and  expensive.  By 
building  up  fictitious  standards  it  has  all  but  alienated 
or  completely  destroyed  the  audience  for  the  higher 
art  of  drama,  and  has  gone  far  toward  destroying  the 
art  of  acting  and  perverting  the  springs  of  playmak- 
ing.  In  a  discussion  of  this  kind  it  is  desirable  to  em 
phasize  as  much  as  possible  the  social  and  organiza 
tion  aspects,  and  permit  the  implications  of  art  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  But  there  are  sufficient  in 
dictments  to  be  brought  against  the  commercial  sys 
tem  on  the  score  of  its  social  and  administrative  in 
efficiency. 

Little  need  be  said  here  about  the  syndicate  system 
of  theatrical  production.  Like  professionalism,  the 
syndicate  is  a  bogey  which  is  held  up  to  the  horror  of 
the  innocent.  Within  limits  the  syndicate  system  was 
a  necessary  outgrowth  of  the  spirit  and  methods  of 
the  times.  It  was  necessary  and  within  reason  for  the 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        109 

theatre  to  make  that  use  of  increased  transportation 
and  communication  facilities  that  other  organizations 
are  using  to  the  end  of  greater  efficiency.  It  was  when 
the  theory  of  monopoly  and  absentee  managerial  con 
trol  entered  that  the  harm  was  done,  for  with  this  sys 
tem  the  manager  lost  all  concern  with  his  demesne 
other  than  the  requirement  that  it  return  him  his 
profit  in  as  quick  order  as  possible,  without  regard  to 
permanency  or  health  of  the  producing  medium. 

The  system  of  organization  fostered  by  this  type  of 
heavy  centralization  organized  the  entire  country  as 
tributary  to  one  city.  Every  legitimate  theatre  in 
every  provincial  city  was  compelled  to  pay  its  tribute 
to  the  central  power  in  New  York.  The  result  of  this 
on  the  side  of  organization  has  been  appalling.  In  the 
space  of  fifteen  years  the  provincial  theatres  have  de 
teriorated  from  local  amusement  enterprises  serving 
the  community  that  fosters  them  to  helpless  creatures 
of  a  distant  master.  The  inevitable  came  quickly  and 
with  telling  force.  As  the  theatre  was  organized  out 
of  touch  with  its  "apprehensible  social  units,"  it  soon 
ceased  to  serve  these  units  intelligently.  The  patron 
age,  served  fitfully  by  an  intelligence  hundreds  of 
miles  away,  dwindled  in  character  and  amount.  The 
cry  went  up  that  there  is  no  support  for  the  higher 
types  of  amusement,  and  the  process  of  stimulating 
by  artificial  means  an  already  alienated  and  perverted 
public  taste  went  on.  It  is  clear  enough  that  neither 
malice  nor  cupidity  need  be  charged  against  any  one. 


no     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

The  system  was  an  impossible  one  from  the  start,  and 
every  effort  to  bolster  it  up  carried  it  further  into  the 
irremediable.  There  began  that  process  which  we  now 
call  the  "collapse  of  the  one-night  stand,"  a  deteriora 
tion  tragical  in  the  social  history  of  our  small  towns 
and  fatal  to  the  sinew  of  our  drama. 

But  while  the  life  was  being  drawn  from  the  prov 
inces,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  system  was  at 
first  a  financial  failure.  It  might  have  been  better  if 
it  had  been,  for  then  the  eyes  of  those  in  authority 
might  have  been  opened.  Blinded  to  the  truth  by  the 
flow  of  money  from  the  outlands,  they  began  to  build 
castles  and  pleasure  houses  at  home.  The  millions  of 
tribute  drawn  from  the  circumference  poured  like  a 
golden  stream  to  the  centre.  From  nowhere  came  the 
intimation  that  in  killing  such  an  impalpable  thing  as 
art  the  business  itself  might  suffer.  And  so  there  began 
the  era  of  theatre  building  in  New  York,  theatre  after 
theatre  built  out  of  the  booking  money  and  percentage 
tribute  of  the  provinces.  Later  the  same  process 
was  begun  in  the  motion-picture  field.  The  business 
of  public  amusement  was  organized  to  draw  water 
eternally  from  a  lake  that  is  fed  only  by  its  natural 
springs.  When  the  drain  becomes  too  great  the  lake 
dries  up. 

Then  the  fictitious  values  upon  which  the  theatre 
had  been  fattening  began  in  their  turn  to  claim  their 
inevitable  compensation.  The  public  had  been  res 
tive;  its  tastes  had  become  unusually  fickle;  never  be- 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        in 

fore  had  it  been  so  difficult  to  say  just  what  the  "pub 
lic  wants."  But  the  true  significance  of  this  was  not 
read  first  in  terms  of  a  diseased  public  taste,  perverted 
and  made  irritable  by  years  of  bad  feeding.  Only  a 
few  theorists  of  the  theatre  saw  this.  The  significance 
of  these  facts  burst  upon  the  minds  of  those  in  control 
when  it  was  seen  that  the  business  of  the  theatre,  al 
ways  as  uncertain  as  a  young  man's  thoughts,  had  now 
become  a  greater  gamble  than  before,  with  the  odds 
against  the  house.  But  while  the  stream  kept  up, 
though  in  diminishing  amounts,  the  building  went  on. 
Until  suddenly  there  came  a  check,  and  from  a  most 
peculiar  cause,  a  cause  of  such  irony,  that  good  old 
Davy  Garrick,  that  artist-business-man  of  the  thea 
tre,  might  well  come  back  just  to  smile  at  it.  It  did 
not  come  from  the  people;  they  could  not  help  them 
selves.  Nor  did  it  come  from  the  actors,  though  as  a 
class  they  had  come  to  recognize  that  never,  even  in 
the  old  days,  had  their  positions  been  so  untenable, 
their  art  provided  so  little  recompense.  It  came  from 
the  authors  themselves.  In  a  day  when  to  be  a  dra 
matic  author  is  to  have  struck  a  Texas  oil  well,  the  cry 
went  up,  "We  cannot  get  plays."  And  a  dozen  New 
York  theatres  opened  to  Shakespeare  played  by  a 
dress-suit  star  and  a  press-agent-created  ingenue.  And 
in  Youngstown  and  Medicine  Hat  the  main  theatre 
was  dark,  while  Bernhardt  and  Bertha  Kalich  played 
to  crowded  houses  in  vaudeville,  and  Mrs.  Fiske  ap 
peared  in  the  movies. 


ii2     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

This  hardly  seems  the  place  at  which  one  can  review 
the  influence  this  system  of  organization  has  had  upon 
the  play  itself.  It  is  when  we  see  fictitious  standards 
working  at  the  heart  of  drama  that  the  monstrousness 
of  the  indictment  stands  revealed.  For  the  true  values 
of  art  at  the  point  where  art  needs  to  be  most  modest 
and  retiring  have  been  prostituted  to  selling  the  goods. 
The  demand  for  truth  which  compels  the  dramatist 
to  delve  into  secret  and  solemn  places  has  been  per 
verted  into  a  pander  to  an  unnatural  taste  for  lu 
bricity.  The  serious  study  of  the  problems  of  virtue 
and  vice  has  become  a  morbid  appeal  to  emotions 
which  are  not  self -corrective.  The  faithful  treatment 
of  emotion  has  become  a  wash  of  sentiment  for  the 
tears  of  the  crowd.  The  keen  appeal  to  the  sense  of 
comedy  becomes  a  sop  to  crude  laughter.  Even  the  in 
tellectual  idea  which  the  world  is  discussing  is  stripped 
of  its  vitality,  retains  of  itself  only  a  semblance  suffi 
cient  to  sell,  and  is  retailed  in  the  form  of  dramatic 
platitudes.  In  other  words,  the  processes,  which  within 
their  class  we  found  to  be  always  working  upward 
in  the  motion-picture  show  and  in  vaudeville,  have 
here  reversed  their  direction,  and  now  inevitably 
settle  downward.  The  theatre  which  should  be  nat 
ural  and  socially  constructive  becomes  unnatural  and 
socially  disintegrating. 

Now,  one  cannot  admit  that  the  sins  of  this  upper 
institution  of  drama  should  be  visited  upon  society.  If 
an  institution  is  not  serving  society,  society  sooner  or 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        113 

later  repudiates  the  institution.  Nor  are  business 
methods  to  blame.  It  is  the  mistaken  system  of  busi 
ness  that  looks  upon  the  art  of  the  theatre  as  trib 
utary  to  the  bank-balance  of  a  speculator.  And  there 
is  no  real  lack  of  potential  support.  Dramatic  art 
that  can  support  itself  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder 
can  support  itself  at  the  top.  There  is  not  demanded 
the  idealism  of  the  artist,  the  sacrifice  of  the  reformer, 
the  charity  of  the  philanthropist.  These  could  be  had 
in  any  event.  What  is  wanted  is  that  sane  business 
acumen  that  knows  the  art  of  the  theatre  on  its  high 
est  side,  and  knows  how  this  may  be  supported  as  a 
business. 

If  my  argument  has  been  followed,  it  will  not  seem 
that  the  situation  is  hopeless.  While  our  Jeremiahs 
are  lamenting,  natural  forces  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
keen-sighted  men  are  active  in  remedying  things.  And 
there  are  several  signs  that  a  new  order  of  business 
management  of  the  theatre  is  on  the  way.  Partly  this 
will  come  because  men  of  the  theatre  are  having  their 
eyes  opened.  Keen-seeing  business  men  are  recogniz 
ing  some  of  the  extravagance  of  the  present  fictitious 
standards  of  the  theatre,  and  as  a  matter  of  economy 
are  reducing  the  system  to  a  more  reasonable  basis. 
The  star  system,  which  not  long  ago  filled  the  coffers, 
has  now  become  a  drain.  Numberless  stars  have  dis 
appeared  from  the  stage,  leaving  none  to  take  their 
places,  and  several  managers  are  sending  out  their 
companies  with  their  own  names  rather  than  that  of  a 


ii4     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

star  outlined  in  the  electric  lights.  To  combat  the 
long  run  a  few  experimental  repertory  theatres  have 
been  inaugurated.  There  has  been  a  movement  also 
to  correct  some  of  the  old  fictitious  standards  in  the 
placing  of  the  theatres.  In  many  of  the  cities  theatres 
for  legitimate  attractions  are  tending  to  find  place 
farther  from  the  centre  of  the  city.  The  artificial 
standards  by  which  the  personality  and  art  of  actors 
are  gauged  are  now  repudiated  by  several  of  the  best 
of  our  actors.  They  have  substituted  for  the  personal 
notice  a  more  dignified  form  of  announcement.  A 
mark  of  this  general  though  timid  tendency  toward 
more  veracious  standards  has  been  seen  in  the  move 
ment  during  the  past  year  to  reduce  the  admission  fees 
to  some  of  the  better  plays. 

Another  tendency  has  set  in  to  solve  the  problem  of 
the  one-night  stand.  We  have  remarked  that  when 
the  syndicate  system  had  drawn  the  life  from  the 
provinces,  the  only  theatres  that  remained  vital  were 
the  locally  managed  motion-picture  theatres  and  the 
vaudeville  theatres  managed  in  sectional  circuits. 
The  legitimate  theatre  in  the  provinces  had  become 
moribund  where  it  had  not  entirely  collapsed.  But  this 
new  tendency  which  has  set  in  to  heal  the  breach  in 
the  legitimate  theatre  is  a  tendency  to  reconstitute 
the  theatre  of  the  provinces  on  the  basis  of  a  narrower 
social  surface.  This  has  come  about  in  the  form  of 
local  companies  and  circuits  of  local  companies.  Dur 
ing  the  last  three  years  there  has  been  a  tremendous 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        115 

increase  in  the  number  of  local  stock  companies.  This 
increase,  which  is  said  by  some  authorities  to  reach 
three  hundred  per  cent,  is  no  sporadic  thing.  It  is  a 
healthy  movement  toward  supplying  in  outlying  dis 
tricts  the  amusement  and  art  which  have  been  denied 
under  a  centralized  national  system.  The  significance 
of  this  is  considerable,  for  within  it  there  are  con 
tained,  through  its  more  natural  processes  of  dramatic 
production,  solutions  of  most  of  the  problems  which 
confront  the  legitimate  theatre  to-day. 

All  these  are  movements  which  are  taking  place 
within  the  old  institution  of  the  theatre.  But  there 
are  other  tendencies  which  are  moving  forward  toward 
a  better  constitution  of  things  in  the  drama.  These 
operate  by  the  most  rational  of  all  processes,  the 
processes  of  society  itself.  They  grow  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  people  themselves  are  taking  hold  of  their 
dramatic  art.  In  a  very  real  sense  the  people  are  tak 
ing  away  from  the  institution  of  the  theatre  functions 
that  have  been  an  institutional  monopoly  for  years. 
It  is  as  if  they  said,  "The  theatre  has  become  alien 
ated  from  the  people.  So  far  has  it  gone  that  it  misre 
presents  them,  and  is  socially  destructive.  In  deference 
to  a  faculty  of  human  nature  itself,  we  are  going  to 
take  over  to  ourselves  dramatic  activities,  and  handle 
them  without  reference  to  the  old  instruments." 

And  so  the  people  are  building  a  new  theatre,  fash 
ioned  out  of  their  own  lives,  designed  to  fit  their  de 
mands,  and  to  express  their  standards.  Not  directly  a 


n6     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

part  of  the  institution  of  the  theatre,  movements  are 
coming  up  that  include,  as  they  should,  the  old  pro 
fessional  theatre  in  their  passion  of  rebuilding.  When 
these  movements  are  matured,  as  they  will  be  ma 
tured,  the  theatre  itself  will  stand  on  a  new  and 
broader  foundation.  How  these  changes  are  taking 
place,  the  steps  that  have  been  taken,  the  experiments 
that  have  been  made,  and  the  results  that  have  al 
ready  been  secured  would  require  a  larger  book  than 
this  to  tell.  Indeed,  several  books  have  already  ap 
peared  to  suggest  the  story.  First  of  all,  the  people 
had  to  learn  the  theatre.  In  respect  of  acquaintance 
ship  with  it  they  were  badly  handicapped.  They  had 
always  been  shut  from  the  theatre  by  iron  doors.  But 
now  they  began  to  study  the  theatre  in  the  same  way 
that  they  studied  any  other  social  institution  that  be 
longed  to  them,  and  for  which  they  were  responsible. 
First  they  began  to  study  the  printed  play.  The  pub 
lication  of  plays  multiplied  at  a  bound  in  response  to 
an  imperative  demand.  Closed  out  of  healthy  rela 
tionship  with  the  theatre  as  an  institution,  men  and 
women  have  been  driven  to  create  their  theatre  for 
themselves,  and  they  have  created  it  out  of  books,  in 
circles  of  readers,  in  groups  gathered  together  to  hear 
a  single  reader  interpret  the  play,  in  any  way,  indeed, 
in  which  they  could  re-create  the  healthy  and  genuine 
reactions  between  dramatic  art  and  society. 

Undoubtedly  all  this  activity  was  a   temporary 
thing,  and  properly  so.    But  men  and  women  were 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        117 

learning  dramatic  art  for  themselves,  that  they  might, 
at  the  proper  time,  put  their  minds  to  the  creating  of  a 
better  institution  of  the  theatre. 

Simultaneously  there  began  the  recognition  of  the 
dramatic  in  schools  and  colleges,  the  rise  of  drama 
clubs  for  the  study  of  drama,  and  the  organization  of 
drama  leagues  for  the  exercise  of  suasion  on  the  pro 
ducers  of  plays.  The  use  of  the  principles  of  dramatic 
art  in  education  has  meant  more  than  the  discovery  on 
the  part  of  educators  that  the  dramatic  method  is  an 
efficient  method  of  teaching;  it  has  meant  the  im 
plicit  recognition  that  drama  lies  at  the  very  heart  of 
social  institutions. 

And  then  came  the  next  and  most  important  step, 
the  formation  of  independent  producing  societies  of 
drama  all  over  the  country.  These  producing  soci 
eties  are  not  at  all  to  be  confused  with  the  parlor  the 
atricals  of  a  generation  ago.  All  of  them  arose  from  a 
definite  social  demand  for  an  immediate  expression  and 
participation  in  dramatic  art,  and  many  of  them  were 
firmly  set  to  the  achieving  of  better  standards  and  the 
service  of  the  better  social  uses  of  dramatic  art.  Im 
perfect  as  they  necessarily  were,  they  derived  from 
their  crudeness  that  wisdom  that  comes  from  experi 
ment,  and  that  honesty  that  rises  from  the  use  of 
original  materials.  Some  of  them,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Bohemian  Club  of  California,  go  back  a  generation. 
Many  of  them  are  the  outgrowths  of  insistent  work 
during  the  last  few  years.  In  all  of  them,  in  so  far  as 


n8     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

they  were  honest,  the  necessary  things  were  not  a  build 
ing  or  even  a  new  repertory,  but  freedom  to  experi 
ment,  and  participation  on  the  part  of  the  audience. 
That  these  experimental  producing  societies,  in  the 
Middle  West,  in  Boston,  in  Philadelphia,  have  served 
a  purpose  is  certain.  It  would  not  be  too  much  to  say 
that  in  half  a  decade  they  have  laid  a  foundation  for  a 
new  outlook  on  American  drama.  From  this  move 
ment,  as  a  kind  of  offshoot,  have  come  the  "little 
theatres"  that  are  springing  up  in  many  cities.  Not 
directly  connected  with  the  experimental  theatre,  for 
by  no  means  all  the  experimenters  of  the  theatre  are 
wedded  to  the  little-theatre  idea,  this  movement  has 
been  an  expression  of  an  independent  demand  aside 
from  the  profession  of  the  theatre,  that  has  already 
risen  to  a  substantial  place. 

And  then  apart  from  these,  men  and  women  who 
would  by  no  means  consider  themselves  experts,  or 
limit  their  interests  to  the  stage,  are  turning  to  the 
theatre  as  to  a  handmaiden.  The  educator  of  youth, 
the  teacher  of  literature  and  history,  the  social  worker, 
the  playground  official  are  taking  drama  as  an  instru 
ment  into  their  work.  And  even  the  artist  is  finding 
in  the  drama  a  means  of  expression  that  supplements, 
or  in  some  respects  even  replaces,  the  technique  of  his 
own  art.  Some  of  the  most  interesting  developments 
of  the  recent  theatre  have  come  from  the  adoption  of 
the  stage  as  a  studio  by  those  who  practice  the  com 
panion  arts. 


THE  STAGE  IN  AMERICA        119 

The  rise  of  the  social  festival  and  pageant,  the  enor 
mous  development  of  the  neighborhood  spirit  in  play 
as  well  as  in  work,  and  the  expression  of  that  spirit  in 
terms  of  the  dramatic  tradition  of  the  neighborhood, 
have  done  much  to  provide  for  society  those  dramatic 
features  so  nearly  lost  through  the  maleficence  of  busi 
ness  in  the  theatre.  Society  is  again  discovering  its 
drama  in  its  flower  parades,  its  pageants  and  fes 
tivals,  its  Fourth  of  July  entertainments,  its  masques 
and  spectacles.  These  things  have  been  no  sporadic 
and  artificial  creation.  They  have  come  out  of  the 
necessary  demands  of  society  for  its  own  expression  in 
play  and  social  art.  That  they  have  been  outside  the 
theatre  has  been  fortunate  both  for  the  theatre  and 
for  society.  For  they  have  involved  a  greater  degree 
of  participation  than  the  theatre  has  permitted  at  any 
time  since  its  beginnings.  They  have  done  much  to 
show  that  the  dramatic  faculties  are  no  isolated  fac 
ulties  in  individuals,  but  lie  in  all  men;  that  this  fac 
ulty  needs  to  be  fostered  and  developed  with  the 
other  faculties  of  the  human  spirit. 

The  theatre  itself,  that  great  institution  that  must 
remain  an  institution,  maintaining  its  own  traditions 
and  respecting  its  own  formulas,  will  profit  greatly 
from  this  natural  upgrowth.  It  will  gain  indirectly 
in  the  new  quality  of  participation  offered  by  the 
audience  in  the  plays  presented  on  the  stage.  It  has 
already  gained  much  directly  in  the  simpler  stories 
that  are  told  on  the  stage,  in  the  dash  of  color  and 


120     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

healthy  sensationalism  that  is  coming  into  plays,  and 
in  a  dependence  upon  genuine  American  conditions 
for  its  inspiration.  One  need  not  go  into  the  changes 
that  may  be  induced  in  the  form  of  drama  and  in  the 
atrical  management.  This  deals  too  much  in  proph 
ecy.  But  there  are  some  things  that  may  safely  be 
promised.  The  legitimate  theatre  itself  will  before 
long  try  to  adapt  itself  more  closely  to  those  appre 
hensible  social  units  that  lie  just  behind  the  institu 
tions  of  a  province.  The  theatre  will  cease  to  try  to 
satisfy  an  entire  national  demand  and  will  turn  its 
energies  to  the  service  of  expression  nearer  home.  Of 
the  vitality  of  this  promise  the  theatrical  experi 
ments  in  many  different  parts  of  the  country  are  ex 
cellent  witness.  In  half  a  dozen  neighborhoods  efforts 
of  different  types  are  going  forward  for  a  new  system 
of  provincial  organization  which  shall  represent  a  new 
type  of  play  production,  American,  we  may  hope,  to 
the  core,  and  all  the  more  American  because  it  serves 
so  concretely  and  expresses  so  intimately  the  life  of 
the  people  of  the  district  from  which  it  springs. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   THEATRE  IN  THE   OPEN 

THE  beginnings  of  things  are  always  outdoors. 
Likewise  when  the  time  for  turning  has  come,  and  the 
old  must  be  given  up  and  the  new  substituted,  that 
change  can  well  take  place  in  the  open  air.  This 
thought  comes  to  one  in  thinking  of  some  recent  events 
in  the  American  theatre,  and  of  the  place  the  open-air 
theatre  and  the  open-air  performance  are  taking  in 
the  rejuvenation  of  our  drama.  A  few  years  ago  we 
began  to  hear  rumors  of  what  the  Bohemian  Club  of 
California  is  doing  in  its  annual  open-air  performance. 
And  in  the  University  of  California  a  beautiful  repro 
duction  of  a  Greek  theatre  was  built,  in  which,  as  time 
went  on,  performances  of  an  increasing  significance 
were  presented.  In  some  of  the  colleges  the  touch  of 
nature  was  given  to  dramatic  art  in  the  spring  festi 
vals  and  in  Shakespearian  performances  given  in  the 
open  air  at  commencement  season.  Few  of  us  saw  the 
meaning  of  these  events  at  the  time.  But  gradually 
they  assumed  a  larger  place  in  the  life  of  the  commun 
ity  and  took  on  better  value  as  artistic  productions. 
Later  the  Ben  Greet  Players  and  after  them  the  Coburn 
Players  brought  to  production  in  the  open  air  the  aid 


122     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

of  organization  and  theatrical  experience.  We  see  now 
that  these  productons  had  in  them  the  germ  of  a  new 
and  vital  movement  which  was  to  do  much  to  renew 
the  soul  of  the  American  art  of  the  theatre.  To-day 
the  open-air  theatre  has  become  a  fixed  institution 
of  our  parks  and  cities,  and  before  very  long  society 
may  draw  from  it  something,  of  the  native  force  that 
inhered  in  dramatic  art  in  earlier  days. 

The  transfer  from  the  protection  of  roofs  and  artifi 
cial  lights  to  the  free  meadow  and  grove  was  not  taken 
easily.  Strangely  enough,  we  have  needed  to  force 
ourselves  to  a  sense  of  the  respectability  of  out-of- 
doors.  It  took  some  time  to  learn  that  grown  people 
may  play  in  the  open  without  impropriety,  that  men 
may  walk  the  summer  streets  in  shirt  waist  and  with 
out  hat,  that  even  a  delicate  and  wise  art  can  prosper 
in  the  open  air.  But  we  are  learning;  and  it  may  be 
that  sometime  man  will  again  be  at  home,  on  his 
higher  as  well  as  his  lower  sides,  amid  the  surround 
ings  of  nature. 

There  is  still  a  good  deal  of  the  "what's  the  use?" 
attitude  toward  dramatics  in  the  open  air.  We  are 
willing  to  run,  jump,  play  tennis  and  golf,  walk  and 
ride  in  the  open  air  during  the  short  months  of  a 
Northern  summer,  but  we  are  apt  to  ask  the  question, 
"Why  have  an  open-air  theatre  at  all  since  it  can  be 
used  only  four  or  five  months  in  the  year?"  It  is  a 
strange  principle  that  refuses  us  the  pleasure  and  use 
of  several  delightful  months  simply  because  they  do 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     123 

not  continue  throughout  the  year.  Certainly  this 
principle  should  not  be  applied  to  the  aesthetic  activi 
ties  if  it  is  not  applied  to  the  physical  ones.  Such  a 
principle  rigorously  applied  would  deny  us  most  of 
the  activities  of  all  kinds  that  make  for  social  health 
and  well-being. 

Only  the  social  dreamer  dares  now  venture  to  state 
the  significance  of  the  open-air  theatre  in  America, 
This  significance  is  both  social  and  artistic,  and  in 
both  directions  the  open-air  theatre  means  an  outlet 
into  new  and  healthier  values.  To-day  this  theatre 
represents  much  that  the  established  theatre  does 
not  do,  and  much  that  society  needs.  On  account  of 
its  size  the  open-air  theatre  is  almost  necessarily  a 
democratic  thing.  On  account  of  its  character  its  use 
represents  a  spontaneous  social  demand.  By  its  na 
ture,  and  the  conditions  of  its  building,  it  belongs  to 
all  the  people.  And  its  whole  disposition  is  toward  the 
natural  and  the  simple,  and  the  display  of  the  traits  of 
a  veritable  artistry. 

As  it  now  presents  itself,  the  open-air  theatre  signi 
fies  a  new  movement  in  dramatic  art.  On  the  social 
side  its  importance  as  an  outlet  for  new  social  prompt 
ings,  particularly  in  imaginative  directions  is  highly 
significant.  As  it  encourages  a  spontaneous  and  in 
formal  dramatic  practice,  its  character,  once  it  grows 
to  considerable  proportions,  should  be  laid  perma 
nently  in  national  and  provincial  characteristics.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  import  bodily  to  the  stage  of  an 


124    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

American  open-air  theatre  an  alien  motive,  and  have  it 
keep  its  flavor  of  the  outlands.  There  is  every  reason 
to  hope  that  the  theatre  in  the  open  will  have  no  small 
share  in  the  nationalization  of  the  art  of  the  theatre 
of  America. 

The  open-air  theatre  represents  to-day  one  stage  in 
the  application  of  sound  social  principle  to  the  prob 
lem  of  leisure.  This  begins  in  the  parks  and  the  play 
grounds  in  the  effort  to  supply  sane  and  healthy  op 
portunities  for  physical  exercise  to  the  children  and 
the  men  and  women  of  the  cities.  But  good  social 
therapeutics  does  not  cease  with  physical  exercise. 
As  they  develop,  games  tend  to  become  socialized;  and 
as  they  rise  in  the  scale,  they  take  on  more  of  the  char 
acteristics  of  art.  Closely  associated  with  social  ath 
letic  exercise  are  the  festival  and  folk  ceremonial;  and 
these  merge  into  drama.  The  ordinary  baseball  pavil 
ion  comes  nearer  to  the  form  and  ideal  of  the  open-air 
theatre  than  any  other  structure  in  common  use  in 
America.  If  we  follow  the  development  of  interest  in 
the  game  of  baseball  from  that  of  the  participant, 
which  we  find  in  the  village  man,  to  the  objective  and 
dramatic  interest  of  the  onlooker,  which  we  see  in 
the  city  enthusiast,  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
interest  in  a  dramatic  action  is  but  a  development 
of  that  interest  common  to  all  in  personal  participa 
tion  in  games  and  exercises.  In  structure  even,  the 
baseball  pavilion  is  more  like  the  theatre  of  the 
Greeks  than  it  is  like  the  circus.  It  is  so  erected  that 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     125 

it  faces  a  centre  set  in  one  side  rather  than  the  wide 
area  of  the  stadium. 

As  a  creator  of  social  solidarity  the  open-air  theatre 
is  more  effective  than  any  other  expedient  in  use  in 
parks  or  on  campuses.  Though  the  theatre  in  the  open 
may  with  propriety  appeal  only  to  a  few,  it  achieves 
its  highest  function  when  it  is  calling  together  into  one 
mass  great  numbers  of  people.  The  significance  of 
this  is  great.  The  forms  of  amusement  in  this  day  are 
very  largely  individual.  It  is  only  the  great  national 
games  that  draw  people  together.  The  automobile, 
golf,  tennis,  the  pursuit  of  business  and  career,  all 
take  one  away  from  the  social  bond.  If  the  open-air 
theatre  can  encourage  the  development  of  any  sense 
of  mass  in  play  it  will  serve,  a  significant  purpose. 

Likewise  the  open-air  theatre  should  provide  a  com 
pensating  tendency  away  from  the  ever-narrowing 
appeal  of  the  higher  types  of  dramatic  art  of  the  city 
theatres.  It  provides  here  in  America  an  expedient 
for  accomplishing  what  Max  Reinhardt  is  attempting, 
by  somewhat  similar  means,  to  accomplish  in  Germany 
through  the  establishment  of  the  "  Theatre  of  the  Five 
Thousand."  According  to  those  who  see  the  logic  of 
this  step,  "Dramatic  art  will  no  longer  be  caviare  to 
the  general  if  it  takes  the  bold  step  from  the  theatre  to 
the  amphitheatre,  from  the  close  confines  of  the  stage 
to  the  vast  arena  of  the  hippodrome  and  the  circus." 

In  other  ways  the  open-air  theatre  will  provide  an 
indirect  return  to  society  through  the  type  of  enter- 


ia6     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

tainment  that  its  structure  compels.  The  structure 
and  size  of  the  open-air  theatres  make  necessary  sim 
plicity  of  appeal  and  a  theatric  art  innocent  of  casuis 
tries.  It  adapts  itself  particularly  to  certain  kinds  of 
performances  —  the  pageant,  the  chronicle  play,  the 
dramatic  spectacle;  and  by  the  laws  of  its  being  the 
shows  and  spectacles  of  the  open-air  theatre  are  al 
most  necessarily  native  and  even  local. 

OPEN-AIR  ILLUSION 

Perhaps  nothing  will  so  clearly  indicate  the  oppor 
tunities  of  the  open-air  theatre  as  a  statement  of  the 
principles  under  which  such  a  theatre  may  be  used. 
For  this  study  only  a  little  can  now  be  learned  from 
the  methods  of  production  in  times  when  this  type 
of  theatre  was  in  common  use.  Audiences  now  differ 
from  the  audiences  of  the  past,  and  the  modern  pro 
duction,  even  in  the  open  air,  must  be  adapted  to  the 
modern  audience.  The  theories  of  illusion  accepted 
to-day  are  so  different  from  those  of  yesterday  that  a 
new  modern  science  of  production  for  open-air  thea 
tres  has  to  be  worked  out.  For  this  science  we  are  in  a 
position  to  supply  now  only  the  elementary  principles. 

The  principle  of  illusion  in  the  open-air  theatre  of 
the  present  must  be  based  upon  its  use  by  a  sophisti 
cated  city  audience.  And  by  a  sophisticated  audi 
ence  we  mean  not  only  an  audience  of  well-trained 
minds,  but  also  an  audience  that  has  been  reared  on 
the  conventions  of  modern  stage  technique.  It  does 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     127 

not  seem  likely  that  the  use  of  the  open-air  theatre 
will  change  greatly  the  system  of  illusion  and  tech 
nique  now  in  use  on  the  stage.  The  theatre  will  only 
discover  new  mediums  and  expedients  for  the  prac 
tice  of  that  technique,  and  will  by  this  means  enrich 
an  art  that  has  become  formalized,  without  changing 
the  principles  of  that  art. 

The  chief  service  that  this  theatre  will  render 
will  be  to  combine  the  utilization  of  nature  as  a  me 
dium,  or  background  of  dramatic  expression,  with  all 
that  has  been  learned  of  illusion  in  the  theatre  through 
centuries  of  experience.  If  this  be  accepted  as  a  prin 
ciple,  it  will  certainly  involve  some  precise  specifica 
tions  in  the  character  of  the  stage  of  the  open-air 
theatre  and  in  the  time  of  the  performance. 

Under  the  system  of  production  in  the  earliest  the 
atres  the  performances  were  held  in  daylight.  This 
was  true  in  Greece  and  Rome,  and  daylight  produc 
tion  has  been  in  vogue  as  late  as  the  time  of  Elizabeth. 
Daylight  never  offered  many  opportunities  for  the 
illusion  of  visual  sensation,  and  when  builders  began 
to  enclose  their  theatres,  the  time  of  performance  was 
pushed  later  into  the  day  and  lighting  systems  became 
of  more  importance.  To-day  it  may  be  said  that  light 
stands  at  the  basis  of  the  modern  stage  illusion.  Man 
et's  words,  spoken  for  painting,  are  no  less  true  of  the 
stage:  "The  principal  personage  in  modern  painting 
is  the  light."  Nothing,  therefore,  would  be  gained  for 
society  or  for  the  art  of  the  theatre  in  insisting  upon  a 


128     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

system  which  would  run  counter  to  the  accustomed 
systems  of  illusion.  And  these  to-day  demand  a  per 
formance  carved  out  of  darkness,  so  to  speak,  by  re 
vealing  and  interpreting  rays  of  light. 

Another  thing  that  will  be  involved  in  the  new  the 
ory  of  the  open-air  theatre  will  be  the  change  of  the 
back  wall  of  the  stage  from  the  formal  lines  of  the 
Greek  skene  to  a  form  more  adapted  to  the  practice  of 
the  modern  stage.  In  consonance  with  the  Greek 
principles  of  beauty,  the  skene  was  adapted  to  the 
plastic  mode  of  theatric  presentation.  With  the  com 
ing  of  the  stage  covering  in  the  late  Greek  and  Roman 
theatre  there  began  also  the  movement  toward  the 
pictorial  type  of  presentation  with  scenes  and  proper 
ties.  In  modern  times  the  same  tendency  was  en 
hanced  by  the  increased  use  of  artificial  lights,  which 
raised  the  value  not  only  of  the  action  upon  the  stage, 
but  no  less  the  value  of  the  stage  setting,  through  the 
playing  upon  it  of  illumination.  And  with  the  change 
in  lights  there  went  forward  also  the  change  in  the 
theories  of  rapport  between  the  audience  and  the 
player,  involved  in  the  pushing  back  of  the  stage 
behind  the  proscenium  arch,  and  the  consequent 
achievement  of  the  strict  pictorial  stage,  which  since 
the  Restoration  in  England  has  been  in  absolute  con 
trol  of  all  stage  principle.  The  changed  theories  of 
rapport  of  the  last  few  years  have  been  partly  in 
fluenced  by  the  open-air  convention,  or  at  least  by  the 
hippodrome  order  of  production.  And  these  years  have 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     129 

seen  also  the  development,  side  by  side,  of  two  meth 
ods  of  the  theatre,  the  one  the  lyrical  and  recitative 
method  of  the  earlier  open-air  theatre  and  the  other 
the  pictorial  and  conversational  method  of  the  enclosed 
theatre. 

There  is  no  expectation  that  the  modern  open-air 
theatre  can  return  to  the  plastic  and  lyrical  method  of 
the  ancient  theatre,  though  already  much  has  been 
done  in  that  direction.  The  principle  of  modern  open- 
air  presentation  must  rest  on  the  convention  of  night 
performance  under  artificial  light,  the  utmost  latitude 
being  given  for  the  expressive  play  of  features  of  na 
ture.  The  rigid  wall  of  the  skene  must  give  way  to 
some  more  flexible  background  of  nature. 

The  discovery  of  the  dramatic  values  of  the  features 
of  nature  is  distinctly  a  modern  thing.  These  are  now 
recognized  not  only  as  expedients  for  the  securing  of 
primitive  effects,  but  as  mediums,  which,  when  han 
dled  with  understanding  and  cunning,  are  capable  of 
some  of  the  richest  and  most  elusive  effects  in  all  the 
domain  of  art. 

Though  in  every  sense  an  open-air  theatre,  the 
theatre  of  the  ancients  was  built  with  little  eye  for 
the  utilization  of  the  effects  of  nature.  It  was  really  of 
little  importance  that  the  audience  was  seated  in  the 
open.  In  every  essential  respect  the  performance 
might  as  well  have  taken  place  behind  closed  doors. 
Not  even  did  the  builders  of  the  theatres  of  Greece  pay 
particular  attention  to  outlook.  That  they  placed 


ijo    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

some  of  their  theatres  facing  the  sea  seems  to  have 
been  an  accident.  The  majority  of  the  theatres  were 
placed  more  with  reference  to  convenience  in  seat 
ing  than  with  reference  to  vista.  The  late  Athenians 
erected  a  high  wall  behind  the  Odeum  of  Herodes 
Atticus  effectively  to  shut  out  the  view,  and  the  Ro 
mans  in  their  theatre  at  Orange  denied  all  chance  of 
nature  background  with  a  high  stage  wall. 

A  sophisticated  century  and  a  sophisticated  people 
always  discover  nature.  The  discovery,  therefore,  of 
nature  as  a  dramatic  medium  is  naturally  a  late  thing. 
It  follows  man's  detachment  from  nature  and  his  con 
sequent  more  understanding  study  and  use  of  her. 
The  formal  gardens  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  showed  nature  taken  into  man's  confidence 
again  and  also  made  his  slave.  The  Italian  theatre 
at  Villa  Gori  of  the  eighteenth  century,  with  its  formal 
ilex  and  cypress,  disclosed  avenues  of  theatric  expres 
siveness  that  were  closed  to  the  art  of  the  indoor  thea 
tre.  And  no  less  might  the  popular  playwrights  of  the 
Bankside  have  learned  many  lessons  of  theatric  art 
from  the  aristocratic  makers  of  the  masques. 

For  we  know  now  that  the  open-air  theatres  of  the 
present  may  do  for  the  many  what  the  masques  and 
the  villas  of  the  past  did  for  the  few  of  two  centuries 
ago.  The  phenomena  of  nature  and  natural  objects 
are  the  most  adaptable,  rich,  and  suggestive  mediums 
within  reach  of  man's  hand.  In  versatility,  and  yet  in 
fidelity  to  type,  in  variety  of  responsiveness,  and 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     131 

amenability  to  an  exact  requirement,  no  color  or  line 
provided  by  the  hand  of  man  can  compete  with  Na 
ture  if  she  is  properly  schooled.  The  color  value  of 
forest,  lake,  and  field,  the  shadows  thrown  by  trees 
and  clouds,  the  light  of  moon  and  stars,  the  varying 
outline  of  trees  and  hills  as  seen  through  the  changing 
palpabilities  of  atmosphere  provide  infinite  material 
for  the  stage  director.  Nature  makes  no  mistakes. 
Chameleon-like,  she  adapts  herself  to  the  action. 
Even  the  falling  stars  seem  to  be  exquisitely  timed. 
These  are  matters  of  optical  effect.  In  auditory  effect 
the  open  air  is  no  less  rich.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
a  bird  to  sing  in  the  wrong  place  in  "As  You  Like  It." 
The  interspersed  silences  and  insect  voices  of  the 
night  are  both  fitly  chosen  for  their  parts. 

The  director  of  a  play  in  the  open  air  has  the  de 
lightful  sense  of  working  with  powers  beyond  himself 
that  will  bring  forth  beauties  better  than  his  thought. 
The  surprises  and  the  discoveries  of  the  art  are  a  part 
of  its  rich  compensation.  For  the  open  air  remains 
one  of  the  unspoiled  mediums  of  dramatic  art. 

TYPES   OF   OPEN-AIR  THEATRES 

Enough  has  been  said  to  suggest  roughly  the  prin 
ciples  of  structure  and  use  favored  by  the  writer.  For 
several  reasons  these  principles  tend  away  from  the 
rigorous  historical  orders  and  toward  the  substitution 
for  them  of  something  new  and  more  adapted  to  pres 
ent  conditions.  A  study  of  certain  present  types  of 


132     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

open-air  theatre  may  serve  to  support  these  conclu 
sions.  Experiments  have  been  made  in  the  structure 
and  use  of  two  or  three  characteristic  forms  of  such 
theatres  in  this  country,  and  from  these  we  will  draw 
our  theories. 

Logically  the  earliest  type  of  theatre  in  the  open 
would  be  a  natural  amphitheatre  unchanged  by  man. 
Ordinarily  the  ground  would  present  two  grades  either 
a  slope  from  which  the  audience  would  look  down  over 
the  stage,  or  a  stage  set  on  a  hillside  backed  by  the 
rise  of  the  hill  up  to  which  the  audience  would  look. 
Though  logically  the  earliest  form,  in  practice  this 
type  of  theatre  requires  a  very  high  type  of  theatric 
imagination  for  its  successful  use,  and  much  more 
skilled  and  scientific  stage  management  than  is  per 
mitted  on  the  austere  stage  of  the  Greeks.  It  may  be 
taken  as  a  principle  that  the  more  we  depend  upon 
nature  the  more  skilled  and  sophisticated  the  stage 
management  must  be. 

By  all  means  the  best  type  of  this  theatre  in  use  in 
America  is  the  Grove  of  the  Bohemian  Club  in  Cali 
fornia  which  has  now  been  in  use  for  thirty-eight  years. 
A  consideration  of  the  work  of  the  Bohemian  Club 
requires  a  treatise  in  itself.  Those  interested  are 
referred  to  a  book  by  Porter  Garnett,  privately  printed 
by  the  Bohemian  Club,  entitled  "The  Bohemian 
Jinks,"  and  the  introduction  to  "The  Green  Knight" 
by  the  same  writer.  From  the  former  the  following 
extracts  are  quoted:  — 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     133 

It  is  nine  o  'clock  at  night  when  the  performance  begins. 
Six  hundred  men  are  gathered  in  a  spacious  glade  of  the 
redwood  forest.  Rows  of  redwood  logs  are  used  for  seats. 
All  is  darkness  save  for  a  group  of  tiny  shaded  lights  that 
make  the  figures  of  the  men  and  their  surroundings  dimly 
visible.  They  are  the  lights  for  the  musicians  in  the  or 
chestra  pit.  Behind  them  is  a  stage  innocent  of  scenery 
except  that  provided  by  Nature.  On  either  side  of  this 
stage  two  immense  trees  forming  the  proscenium  stretch 
upward  into  the  greater  darkness  overhead.  At  the  back  of 
the  stage  is  an  abrupt  hillside  covered  with  a  dense  growth 
of  shrubs  and  small  trees,  picked  out  here  and  there  with 
the  shafts  of  redwood.  Amid  the  tangle  of  brake  and  brush, 
the  trail  which  the  eye  can  scarcely  see  by  day  winds  its 
devious  course. 

Slowly,  mysteriously,  the  only  curtain  —  which  is  one  of 
darkness  —  is  lifted,  and  the  stage  is  lighted  by  artificial 
means,  cunningly  disguised,  augmenting  the  placid  rays  of 
the  moon.  The  action  of  the  play  begins. 

The  stage  is  situated  at  the  foot  of  a  wooded  hillside, 
and,  as  has  been  already  said,  is  framed  by  the  trunks  of 
enormous  trees  that  form  a  natural  proscenium.  In  front 
is  an  orchestra  pit  large  enough  to  accommodate  the  fifty 
or  more  musicians  employed  in  the  production.  .  .  .  The 
hillside  rises  abruptly  from  the  back  of  the  stage,  and  on 
it  is  a  series  of  platforms,  completely  masked  by  foliage, 
where  parts  of  the  action  take  place.  The  stage,  or  set  of 
stages,  which  calls  for  and  admits  of,  different  treatment 
from  all  others,  has  its  chiefest  dissimilarity  in  what  may 
be  called  its  vertical  character.  The  action  may  take  place 
here,  not  at  one,  two,  or  three  elevations,  but  at  ten  or 
even  more  if  necessary.  It  is  possible  of  course  to  compass 
on  such  a  stage  effects  that  cannot  be  produced  in  the  ordi 
nary  theatre,  and  the  productions  invented  for  it  are  usu 
ally  shaped  to  its  magnificent  possibilities. 


134     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

The  hillside  is  a  natural  sounding  board  and  the  acous 
tics  of  the  place  are  so  good  that  words  spoken  in  a  normal 
tone  from  the  highest  point  of  the  trail  by  a  person  whose 
voice  has  ordinary  carrying  power,  can  be  distinctly  heard 
at  the  back  of  the  auditorium  glade. 

From  this  study  of  the  California  Grove  amphi 
theatre  we  get  the  following  points:  — 

1.  Performances  are  held  at  night  and  are  accom 
panied  by  an  unusual  degree  of  mechanical  and  illumi 
native  artifice. 

2.  As  many  as  possible  of  the  effects  are  gained  from 
the  manipulation  and  use  of  natural  objects. 

3.  The  very  individuality  of  the  stage  serves  as  a 
limitation  on  the  kinds  of  plays  that  can  be  success 
fully  produced.   These  must  be  written  expressly  for 
the  club,  and  must  be  adapted  to  the  wild  type  of  its 
stage.  Here  it  is  not  the  austerity  of  man's  edifice,  but 
the  overpowering  character  of  nature  itself  that  limits 
the  producer. 

Next  to  this  is  the  so-called  "  Greek "  theatre  type 
with  a  stage  background  of  hard  classic  lines,  adapted 
to  the  Greek  ideals  of  art  and  standing  for  the  plastic 
type  of  production.  To  this  is  related  the  Roman 
theatre  in  which  the  audience  is  brought  nearer  to  the 
stage,  the  stage  is  elevated,  the  incline  of  seats  is  raised, 
and  all  the  indications  point  to  the  development  of 
the  more  recent  principles  of  dramatic  production. 
The  most  famous  American  example  of  a  theatre  com 
bining  characteristics  of  both  these  types  is  the  well- 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     135 

known  Hearst  Greek  Theatre  of  the  University  of 
California. 

The  Hearst  Greek  Theatre  is  an  excellent  example 
of  modern  fidelity  to  ancient  type.  The  impression 
the  building  gives  is  one  of  chaste  dignity  and  beauty. 
The  building  itself  is  so  impressive  that  some  of  the 
excellent  advantages  of  its  location  against  a  tree-cov 
ered  hillside  are  lost.  The  stage  is  wide  and  shallow, 
being  twenty-eight  feet  deep,  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
three  feet  in  long  dimension,  and  five  feet  high.  The 
containing  walls  of  concrete,  ornamented  with  Doric 
pilasters,  and  pierced  by  five  doors,  run  up  to  the 
height  of  forty-two  feet.  The  seats  of  the  amphitheatre 
rise  in  concentric  circles  to  the  same  height. 

The  building  is,  therefore,  a  massive  concrete  and 
masonry  bowl  of  remarkably  pure  and  strong  beauty. 
Its  one  great  shortcoming  is  the  fact  that  it  forces 
on  the  producer  a  servility  to  the  classic  type  of  pro 
duction.  Let  me  quote  from  a  careful  study  of  the 
principles  of  this  building  made  by  Mr.  Kenneth 
Sawyer  Goodman :  — 

I  at  once  found  myself  wondering  just  what  use  an 
American  playwright  or  pageantier  could  make  of  such  a 
theatre  without  constantly  feeling  the  limitations  put 
upon  him  by  all  this  background  of  solid  masonry.  Clearly 
the  eye  could  not  be  tricked  into  accepting  any  illusion  of 
distance,  of  depth  of  picture,  attempted  no  matter  how 
simply,  or  cleverly.  Clearly  the  sides  of  the  frame  could  in 
no  way  be  narrowed  without  screening  the  greater  part  of 
the  remaining  stage  area  from  the  view  of  at  least  half  the 


i3 6     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

audience.  No  change  of  setting  could  be  accomplished 
on  a  stage  which  could  not  be  well  curtained,  and  which 
owing  to  the  color  of  the  material  would  never  be  com 
pletely  dark  save  on  the  blackest  of  moonless  nights. 
It  was  obvious  too,  that  no  large  piece  of  scenery  could  be 
handled  through  the  narrow  doors  already  mentioned,  and 
that  the  problem  of  lighting  would  always  be  complex  and 
difficult. 

I  decided  reluctantly,  for  I  admired  the  beauty  of  the 
place,  that  it  could  be  used  effectively  only  for  the  presen 
tation  of  dramatic  forms  closely  allied  to  the  Greek  play 
in  structure,  or  at  best  hampered  by  some  equally  rigid 
convention.  As  I  look  at  the  range  of  plays,  masques,  and 
pageants  already  written  or  still  to  be  written  which  are, 
or  will  be  played  in  the  open  air  I  cannot  be  too  em 
phatic  in  stating  my  objection  to  such  limitations  and 
conventions.  It  should  be  possible,  first  of  all,  to  stage 
chronicle  plays  dealing  with  American  history,  European 
history,  the  history  of  art,  letters,  etc.  This  cannot  be  done 
without  suggesting  glimpses  of  forests,  streets,  squares, 
gardens,  house-fronts,  even  now  and  then  a  Hall  of  Justice, 
or  the  throne  room  of  a  palace.  We  must  therefore  be  able 
to  change  our  background,  either  to  darken  or  to  curtain 
our  stage  for  that  purpose  and  to  deepen  or  narrow  the 
acting  area  as  occasion  demands.  None  of  these  things  can 
be  accomplished  successfully  at  Berkeley. 

A  study  of  the  plays  produced  in  the  Greek  Theatre 
strengthens  our  agreement  with  Mr.  Goodman's  con 
clusions.  Those  plays  which  have  been  produced  with 
absolute  success  have  been  the  tragedies  of  the  im 
mortal  trio  of  Greece.  Where  modern  romantic  plays 
were  produced  the  stage  was  not  used  at  all,  but  the 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     137 

action  was  brought  down  into  the  orchestra,  and  the 
stone  columnar  background  was  hidden  as  well  as 
might  be  with  trees. 

The  chief  drawbacks  of  the  Greek  Theatre  at  Berke 
ley  for  the  purposes  of  an  American  open-air  theatre 
are :  — 

1.  Its  inflexible  requirement  of  a  certain  alien  type 
of  production. 

2.  Its  lack  of  facilities  for  effective  night  illumin 
ation. 

3.  Its  failure  to  appropriate  the  natural  character 
istics  of  the  district  to  its  own  purposes,  and  its  con 
sequent  neglect  of  any  national  or  provincial  character. 

A  Greek  theatre  which  avoids  some  of  these  limita 
tions  is  the  theatre  of  the  Theosophical  Society  at 
Point  Loma,  California,  the  first  theatre  of  the  type 
in  America.  This  theatre  utilizes  the  natural  charac 
teristics  of  location  by  providing  a  magnificent  marine 
outlook.  The  presence  of  a  small  Greek  temple  is  the 
only  thing  that  controls  the  type  of  production. 

From  these  two  illustrations  we  may  without  further 
discussion  derive  certain  principles  of  open-air  theatre 
construction. 

The  open-air  theatre  should  be  the  product  of  the 
environment,  both  as  to  society,  and  as  to  natural 
surroundings. 

The  stage  should  be  so  manipulated  that  it  will  be 
subordinate  to,  and  not  superior  to,  the  interests  of 
the  action. 


i3 8     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

Such  a  theatre  should  show  the  following  charac 
teristics  :  — 

1.  A  maximum  of  the  sense  of  open  air  as  com 
pared  with  the  comparative  structural  enclosure  of  the 
classical  type. 

2.  A  background  sufficiently  flexible  and  enigmati 
cal  to  serve  the  diverse  purposes  of  illusion. 

3.  A  background  sufficiently  appropriate  to  express 
the  national  and  provincial  character  of  the  environ 
ment. 

The  last  two  requirements  sufficiently  clearly  point 
to  a  background  of  trees  or  an  appropriate  vista  of 
lake  or  sea  or  mountain.  The  cypresses  and  ilex  of  the 
Villa  Gori  in  Italy;  the  willows  of  Professor  Behren's 
theatre  at  Dusseldorf,  Germany;  the  pine  woods  of 
the  natural  stage  of  the  pageant  at  Peterborough,  the 
redwoods  and  eucalyptus  of  California,  the  hickories, 
walnuts,  and  elms  of  the  Middle  West,  are  all  thor 
oughly  appropriate,  from  the  point  of  view  of  illusion 
no  less  than  of  local  color. 

BUILDING  TECHNIQUE 

It  is  already  clear  that  the  building  technique  of  an 
open-air  theatre  will  depend  largely  on  the  physical 
characteristics  of  the  ground  under  consideration.  If 
in  a  hilly  country,  the  theatre  should  be  placed  on  the 
side  of  a  hill.  If  in  a  flat  country,  the  amphitheatre 
may  be  scooped  out  saucer-shaped  from  a  meadow. 
The  stage  should  always  be  set  with  due  relation  to 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     139 

background,  and  this  should  always  be  natural.  No 
building  should  be  permitted  within  the  vista.  Where 
there  is  water  it  is  well  that  the  stage  should  be  con 
tiguous  to  the  water,  so  that  boats,  gondolas,  even 
water  nymphs  may  be  used  in  the  action.  Of  the  lat 
ter  qualification  the  open-air  theatre  erected  in  Forest 
Park,  St.  Louis,  for  the  Historic  Masque  and  Pageant 
of  St.  Louis  in  the  summer  of  1914,  provides  an  ex 
cellent  illustration.  Here  the  vast  stage  was  built  on 
poles  over  an  inland  lake  with  a  broad  ribbon  of  clear 
water  before  the  stage  which  served  not  only  for  ma 
rine  action  but  as  a  sounding-board.  In  short,  the 
topography  of  the  ground,  and  the  presence  of  natural 
features,  should  govern  in  every  case,  and  the  rule 
should  be:  Nature  manipulated  only  to  discover  its 
best  values,  and  make  it  tractable. 

In  theory  the  open-air  theatre  should  be  large,  but 
its  size  is  not  a  binding  characteristic.  Indeed,  if  the 
construction  of  the  theatre  is  not  too  formal,  its  size  is 
easily  flexible.  Unlike  an  indoor  auditorium,  the  open- 
air  theatre  is  amenable  to  treatment  in  units,  and  it  is 
the  audience  that  supplies  the  standard  of  complete 
ness  rather  than  the  building.  A  small  audience  well 
grouped  around  the  stage  is  as  complete  in  itself  as  a 
larger  one.  Ordinarily  no  open-air  theatre  should  be 
built  in  park  or  campus  that  will  not  permit  large 
crowds.  The  open-air  theatres  in  estates  and  private 
parks  are  a  different  thing. 

It  is  usually  found  that  one's  estimate  of  areas  is 


1 40     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

less  trustworthy  outdoors  than  indoors.  So  one  is 
likely  to  underestimate  rather  than  overestimate  the 
seating  capacity  of  a  given  plot  of  ground.  Given  a 
square  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  there  is  easily 
room  for  a  stage  and  amphitheatre  seating  ten  thou 
sand  spectators.  The  size  of  the  open-air  theatre  is 
really  limited  only  by  the  acoustic  properties  of  the 
plat,  and  the  illusionistic  theories  accepted. 

The  matter  of  acoustics  is  very  much  more  simple 
outdoors  than  indoors.  Outdoors  it  is  simply  a  matter 
of  experiment  until  a  good  place  is  found.  Indoors  the 
factors  are  far  more  complicated,  and  at  the  best  are 
subject  to  ungovernable  chance.  As  a  rule  the  voice 
carries  better  in  the  open  air,  and  this  is  particularly 
the  case  where  the  amphitheatre  is  a  natural  one. 
The  Greek  Theatre  at  Berkeley  is  situated  in  a  nat 
ural  depression  in  the  University  campus  known  as 
"Weede's  Hollow,"  because  of  the  discovery  by  a 
student  named  Weede  of  the  wonderful  acoustic  prop 
erties  of  the  place. 

The  seats  in  the  amphitheatre  may  be  arranged  in 
either  straight  or  concentric  lines.  The  latter  is  the 
plan  of  the  Greek  theatres,  and  is  followed  by  almost 
all  open-air  theatres.  There  are  spots  in  which  the 
demands  of  the  situation  seem  to  require  straight 
lines.  The  floor  surface  of  the  amphitheatre  should  be 
inclined  in  any  case  (unless  as  in  the  case  of  the  Bo 
hemian  Club  stage,  which  itself  is  on  a  hillside,  and 
faces  a  very  small  open  amphitheatre.)  In  a  flat  coun- 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     141 

try  undue  excavating  and  building  may  be  avoided 
by  making  the  surface  saucer-shaped.  In  the  Greek 
Theatre  at  Berkeley  there  are  two  lines  of  incline,  the 
more  radical  being  at  a  distance,  the  gentler  sloping 
toward  the  stage.  In  arranging  the  surface  of  the 
auditorium  care  needs  to  be  taken  of  the  lines  of  sight. 
These  are  compounded  of  the  factors  of  the  height  of 
the  stage,  the  incline  of  the  amphitheatre  with  heights 
of  seats,  and  the  distance  between  the  rows  of  seats. 

STAGE 

We  have  before  decided  against  the  rigid  lines  of  the 
Greek  skene  as  unadaptable  to  American  uses,  and 
have  also  shown  that  the  plays  must  be  given  at  night 
with  a  certain  acknowledgment  of  the  claims  of  the 
modem  convention.  This  brings  us  to  several  ques 
tions:  First,  What  will  take  the  place  of  the  frame 
provided  by  the  side  walls  of  the  Greek  skene,  and  by 
the  proscenium  arch  of  the  closed  theatre?  Second, 
Since  the  plays  are  to  be  performed  at  night,  by  what 
means  will  sufficient  light  be  provided  to  illuminate 
the  scene? 

As  it  happens,  the  answer  to  these  questions  is  a 
single  one.  The  proscenium  arch  is  no  accidental  and 
arbitrary  thing.  It  has  entered  into  the  theory  not 
only  of  the  theatre,  but  of  the  action  of  the  play.  If 
the  open-air  theatre  is  to  be  true  to  modern  conven 
tion  it  must  provide  a  frame  for  the  picture.  It  may 
be  a  tree  on  each  side  of  the  stage,  or  a  pole  or  a  wicker 


1 42     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

arch.  Such  a  frame  is,  for  instance,  provided  beauti 
fully  by  the  trees  of  the  Bohemian  Grove  stage.  The 
answer  to  the  double  question  is  contained  in  the  sug 
gestion  to  erect  at  the  right  and  the  left  of  the  stage 
and  at  its  front  line  two  high  lighting  towers,  of  char 
acteristic  architecture,  provided  with  platforms  at  the 
top  from  which  the  lighting  board  can  be  handled. 
By  this  means  and  by  the  use  of  hidden  footlights, 
borders  swung  on  wires  behind  branches,  and  calciums 
properly  distributed,  all  the  lighting  effects  that  are 
required  on  any  stage  may  be  secured.  At  the  same 
time  the  towers  will  serve  as  effective  frames  for  the 
action. 

The  size  of  the  stage  is  not  a  fixed  quantity.  We  saw 
that  the  Berkeley  stage  measures  twenty-eight  by  one 
hundred  and  thirty-three  feet.  These  dimensions 
hardly  stand  the  test  of  experience.  Ordinarily  fifty 
by  seventy-five  feet  is  the  proper  size,  but  this  should 
be  subject  to  easy  increase  by  annexing  portions  of  the 
amphitheatre  in  front.  In  fact,  this  has  had  to  be 
done  in  the  performances  in  the  Berkeley  Greek  Thea 
tre.  Given  a  stage  of  forty  feet  depth  and  an  available 
fore-stage  extension  of  fifty  feet  and  one  has  an  avail 
able  stage  depth  of  ninety  feet,  certainly  more  than 
enough  for  a  usual  use.  The  length  of  the  stage  may 
vary  greatly.  In  case  of  the  use  of  large  numbers  of 
people  they  can  be  used  in  processional.  And  any 
greater  length  than  seventy  feet  provides  problems  of 
sight  from  all  parts  of  the  enclosure  that  are  hardly 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     143 

worth  the  advantage  gained.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  these  figures  are  dwarfed  by  the  size  of  the  great 
St.  Louis  stage,  which  was  five  hundred  feet  broad  and 
faced  an  amphitheatre  seating  eighty  thousand  peo 
ple.  At  most  there  would  hardly  be  demand  for  more 
than  two  or  three  such  theatres  in  the  country. 

As  to  background  of  the  stage  we  have  perhaps  said 
enough  to  show  that  in  the  present  state  of  the  open-air 
theatre  in  America  no  high  wall  or  building  could  be 
considered  appropriate.  There  is  nothing  better  than 
a  background  of  trees  sufficiently  dense  to  appear 
solid,  and  sufficiently  open  to  give  vistas  beyond  of 
hills  or  lake.  Each  location  has  its  own  problems 
which  should  be  made  its  opportunities.  If  the  stage 
is  on  a  level  with  the  ground  it  will  not  even  need  a 
balustrade,  but  if  it  is  above  ground  a  simple  protec 
tion  will  be  required,  broken  by  entrances  from  off  the 
stage.  Of  all  entrances  the  side  entrances  should  be 
most  ample,  as  they  must  give  opportunity  for  the 
simultaneous  entrance  of  many  people,  of  chariots  and 
animals.  Steps  should  not  be  used  as  entrances  if  it  is 
possible  to  avoid  them. 

Soon  we  may  expect  that  the  planting  of  trees  as 
background  and  as  side  enclosures  will  be  undertaken 
in  a  formalistic  way.  There  are  some  American  trees, 
such  as  the  evergreens  and  the  poplars,  which  are  sub 
ject  to  formal  uses,  and  these  may  be  planted  and 
trimmed  to  suit  the  style  of  the  theatre.  The  use,  too, 
of  hedges  and  bushe,s  for  side  protecting  walls  is  to  be 


i44     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

recommended.  The  principle  is  wherever  possible  to 
use  the  expedients  of  nature  under  the  manipulative 
treatment  of  man. 

The  stage  proper  is  constructed  of  masonry  or  con 
crete.  The  stage  floor  may  be  covered  with  oiled 
macadam  or  be  sodded,  according  to  the  floor  of  the 
amphitheatre.  In  dispensing  with  the  Greek  skene  we 
lose  the  ancient  place  for  the  dressing-rooms.  These 
may  be  placed  in  clumps  of  trees  to  right  and  left,  away 
from  the  line  of  sight,  or,  where  the  stage  is  on  a  hill, 
they  may  be  placed  under  the  stage.  Nothing  is  gained 
by  having  the  dressing-rooms  immediately  contiguous 
to  the  stage.  Indeed,  under  the  informal  convention 
of  the  open  air  there  is  an  added  charm  in  having  the 
dressing-rooms  at  such  a  distance  that  the  players  may 
be  observed  walking  to  their  places. 

Very  little  can  be  said  about  the  cost  of  an  open-air 
theatre.  This  detail  depends  upon  the  local  situation 
and  demand.  The  work  may  involve  only  the  grading 
and  seeding  of  a  grass  meadow  and  turf  stage,  or  it  may 
rise  to  the  ambitious  heights  of  granite  construction. 
A  community  which  seriously  desires  an  open-air  the 
atre  can  get  one  which  serves  all  purposes  for  two 
thousand  dollars  aside  from  cost  of  land. 

USES   OF   OPEN-AIR  THEATRES 

The  agitation  for  open-air  theatres  has  accompa 
nied  a  development  in  certain  types  of  dramatic  art. 
As  a  rule  these  types  have  arisen  apart  from  the  com- 


THE  THEATRE  IN  THE  OPEN     145 

mercial  theatre  and  in  response  to  a  spontaneous  de 
mand  on  the  part  of  the  people.  When  the  open-air 
theatre  comes  to  pass,  it  will  find  ready  for  it  whole 
orders  of  dramatic  practice  which  need  but  its  facili 
ties  to  bring  them  to  perfection. 

The  pageant  which  has  been  reborn  in  England  and 
America  within  the  last  ten  years  is  now  one  of  the 
most  influential  types  of  dramatic  art.  The  pageants 
of  Sherborne,  Oxford,  York,  and  Warwick  in  England, 
the  pageants  of  Norwich,  of  Bronxville,  of  Cornish, 
New  Rochelle,  Quebec,  Gloucester,  Rochester,  De 
troit,  Peterborough,  the  Northwest,  and  St.  Louis, 
have  led  the  way  for  pageants  in  the  great  cities  and  in 
scattered  hamlets.  Beginning  almost  spontaneously 
in  scattered  places  as  processions  and  ceremonials, 
they  soon  took  the  necessary  step  into  dramatic  form. 
Produced  at  first  upon  rude  or  improvised  stages,  the 
time  has  come  when  they  demand  the  facilities  which 
will  give  them  a  proper  staging. 

But  even  better  than  the  pageant  for  the  uses  of  the 
open-air  theatre  is  the  masque.  This  is  a  form  which, 
more  dependent  on  machinery  and  mass  effects  than 
the  pageant,  and  less  controlled  by  the  idea  and  the 
necessities  of  naturalism,  offers  opportunities  of  the 
widest  appeal  through  all  the  instrumentalities  of 
music,  dancing,  scenery,  color,  lighting,  and  plastic 
effects.  The  pageant  is  still  bound  to  the  individual  as 
actor,  and  the  individual  is  likely  to  be  dwarfed  on  the 
open-air  stage.  But  the  masque  operates  through 


146     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

massed  groups,  through  symbolic  scenery,  through 
ballets  and  processions,  and  through  the  now  hardly 
realized  possibilities  of  the  Uebermarionette. 

The  open-air  theatre  is  not  made  for  fine  psycho 
logical  effects  delivered  to  the  intelligence.  But  it  is  an 
open  door  to  the  soul  of  the  senses.  Anything  that  ap 
peals  to  the  sensibilities,  whether  in  the  finer  spiritual 
or  in  the  more  sensuous  zones,  finds  a  place  there. 
For  this  reason  the  fanciful,  the  symbolic,  the  fantas 
tic,  the  pantomimic,  even  horse-play  and  pretty  romp 
ing,  are  at  home  on  its  stage.  Harlequin  and  Colum 
bine,  Punchinello  and  Pickle  Herring,  Pastor  Fido  and 
Aminta,  Jaques  and  Audrey,  and  Bottom  and  The 
seus,  and  their  modern  counterparts  belong  to  the 
open-air  theatre. 

We  in  America  have  made  a  start  toward  this  kind 
of  writing.  The  pastoral  plays  and  the  fantastics  and 
masques  of  Percy  MacKaye,  "the  Jinks"  of  the  Bo 
hemian  Club,  the  masques  of  Stevens  and  Goodman, 
and  very  many  others  of  local  import  show  the  way 
in  which  the  movement  is  headed. 

Every  day  the  newspapers  bring  us  suggestions  of 
new  open-air  meeting-places  for  the  people.  Many  of 
these  are  only  suggestions,  but  some  of  them  will  be 
achieved.  The  open-air  theatre  will  be  but  another 
instrument  for  the  reconstruction  of  American  dra 
matic  art  by  a  saner  social  plan. 


CHAPTER  V 

FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY 

AMONG  the  social  developments  of  the  past  ten 
years  none  has  been  more  significant  than  the  rapid 
growth  of  pageantry.  Ten  years  ago  the  pageant  was 
known  only  as  an  obsolete  ceremonial,  continued  in 
the  vestiges  of  the  street  parade,  the  carnival,  and  the 
secret-society  ritual.  To-day  the  largest  cities  and  the 
smallest  villages  have  their  pageants.  The  pageant 
has  woven  its  way  into  the  fabric  of  society.  It  is  now 
a  commonplace  that  the  pageant  is  a  potent  instru 
ment  in  the  social  programme.  And  by  its  zealous  ad 
herents  it  is  hailed  as  an  early  expression  of  an  art 
impulse  springing  from  the  soil. 

The  significance  of  the  pageant  is  thus  a  dual  one. 
On  the  one  side  it  signifies  an  active  society  seeking  an 
outlet  for  its  common  energies.  On  the  other  side  it 
represents  an  appropriation  on  a  large  scale  by  the 
people  themselves  of  new  agencies  of  artistic  expres 
sion,  aside  from  those  provided  by  the  theatre,  and 
their  use  of  these  agencies  for  their  own  purposes  and 
according  to  their  own  methods. 

Along  with  the  pageant  there  have  also  grown  up 
other  ceremonies  which,  like  the  pageant,  are  also  in 
the  people's  hands,  and  are  being  used  for  social  and 


i48     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

artistic  purposes.  These  are  the  festival,  on  the  art 
side  standing  lower  than  the  pageant,  and  the  masque, 
which  ranks  aesthetically  higher.  All  of  these  function 
in  the  same  way.  All  of  them  are  outdoor  activities, 
they  all  require  the  participation  of  many  people  in 
exercises  directed  toward  social  unity  in  the  forms  of 
art  expression,  and  all  of  them  involve  new  systems  of 
organization  for  the  purposes  of  this  expression. 

To  one  who  is  able  to  read  the  signs  of  the  times 
this  rise  of  pageantry  and  the  outdoor  ceremonial 
spells  important  meanings,  not  only  for  the  present, 
but  for  the  future  of  American  society  and  American 
dramatic  art.  For  here  we  have  a  spontaneous  and 
a  native  movement  which  is  part  and  parcel  of  the 
American  system.  The  principles  of  pageantry  have 
not  been  laid  down  by  external  regulation.  They 
have  developed  normally  out  of  the  active  practice  of 
the  art.  A  study  of  the  principles  underlying  pag 
eantry  will  do  much  to  make  clear  the  tendencies  now 
forming  for  a  more  coherent  society  and  its  expression 
by  a  native  art. 

THE   SUBSTANCE   OF  PAGEANTRY 

Manifestly  such  a  study  cannot  begin  with  a  defini 
tion.  This  must  be  supplied  by  a  consideration  of  the 
art  itself  in  its  historical  development  and  in  its  vari 
ous  kinds.  There  would  probably  be  agreement  among 
those  who  practice  the  art  of  pageantry  as  to  the  gen 
eral  substance  of  which  the  pageant  is  constructed. 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     149 

The  following  are  suggested  as  the  material  of  pag 
eantry  :  — 

1.  Historical  fact.    It  may  be  agreed  that  every 
pageant  is  composed  of  social  material  which  may 
be  identified  by  reference  to  history.  This  material 
usually   centres   around   certain   definite   events   or 
outstanding  or  significant  persons.    The  great  ma 
jority  of  pageants  of  all  kinds  contain  such  sub 
stance. 

2.  Ceremonial  and  form.  These  differ  from  histori 
cal  fact  in  that  they  are  the  ordered  expressions  of 
past  social  practices,  the  ornate  dress  of  social  activi 
ties,  the  symbols  of  dignities  and  classes.   This  mate 
rial  is  full  of  light  for  the  historian.  It  is  indispensable 
to  the  artist  and  lover  of  humanity.    There  is  a  ten 
dency  on  the  part  of  some  to  belittle  this  element  in  the 
pageant.  This  is  an  essential  mistake.  A  true  pageant 
requires  ceremonial  and  form.    Some  ages  are  cere 
monial  of  themselves.   For  them  pageantry  is  a  part 
of  existence.  Other  ages  have  little  ceremonial.  These 
call  upon  the  pageant  master  to  imitate  past  forms, 
and  to  invent  new  ones. 

3.  Folk-activities  and  folk-lore.  These  are  the  out 
growth  of  the  primitive  imaginations  of  men.    But 
primitive  imagination  belongs  no  more  to  early  than 
to  late  times.  The  primitive  imagination  is  always  at 
work.  It  is  the  task  of  the  pageant  master  to  perpetu 
ate  the  past  and  to  formulate  for  art  the  more  recent. 
The  stories  and  dances  of  all  times,  the  heroic  and 


150    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

comic  figures  of  distant  and  near  mythology  are  ma 
terials  of  pageantry. 

4.  Community  life  and  spirit.  The  pageant  is  cre 
ated  of  the  substance  of  present  community  life  in  two 
senses.  First  the  pageant  calls  upon  the  organization 
of  the  community  as  the  machinery  of  its  being.  The 
magnitude  of  the  pageant  is  so  great  that  any  one 
pageant  calls  into  activity  an  appreciable  share  of  the 
total  population  of  the  community.  In  another  no 
less  important  sense  the  pageant  is  dependent  on  com 
munity  life  and  spirit.  The  pageant  is  an  expression 
of  the  self-consciousness  of  the  community  as  a  social 
unit.  Whether  the  theme  be  the  history  of  the  dis 
trict,  or  of  some  distant  historical  epoch,  the  spirit 
that  gives  present  vitality  is  that  of  the  active  com 
munity. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  term  "pageant"  is  now 
made  to  apply  to  activities  as  unlike  as  a  trade  expo 
sition,  a  kirmess,  and  a  flower  show,  there  will  prob 
ably  be  substantial  agreement  among  the  critical  that 
the  pageant  may  properly  be  distinguished  from  sev 
eral  other  activities  also  of  a  social  origin  with  which 
it  is  sometimes  confused.  The  interests  of  all  these 
activities,  no  less  than  of  the  pageant  itself,  require 
that  each  shall  find  its  proper  place. 

i.  The  pageant  is  not  a  festival.  While  it  undoubt 
edly  utilizes  many  of  the  elements  of  festival,  the 
pageant  should  be  distinguished  from  the  slightly 
organized  fete-day  activities  of  a  community.  The 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     151 

festival  centres  in  pastime  and  play.  The  heart  of  the 
pageanLlies^in  ^presentation.  These  are  not  incon 
sistent,  but  they  are  different.  The  pageant  should 
not  be  confused  with  Mardi  Gras,  the  tournaments  of 
Roses,  the  fetes  of  Avignon,  the  Mexican  fiestas,  the 
Mummers  of  Quakertown,  the  ceremonies  of  Isis. 

2.  The  pageant  is  not  an  open-air  production  of  a 
regular  drama.    The  fact  of  production  in  the  open 
may  so  modify  the  presentation  as  to  introduce  pag 
eant  elements.   But  a  pageant  differs  from  a  play  in 
construction  and  purpose.   A  play  is  concerned  with 
the  mental  relationships  of  a  group  of  people   in 
volved  about  a  single  theme.   A  pageant  deals  with 
external  happenings  and  shows  and  is  loosely  knit  in 
sequence.  If  the  play  is  presented  in  the  pageant  man 
ner,  it  ceases  to  be  a  play  and  becomes  a  bad  pageant. 

3.  Finally,  a  pageant  is  not  a  masque.   It  is  with 
the  masque  that  the  pageant  has  been  most  confused. 
This  has  come  in  the  mistaken  identification  of  the 
one  form  with  the  other.   It  has  also  come  with  the 
introduction  into  the  pageant  of  factors  that  belong 
peculiarly  to  the  masque.  The  masque  is  a  form  of  art 
that  deals  in  a  symbolic  way  with  abstractions,  social 
and  ethical,  cast  in  the  form  of  a  plot,  after  the  man 
ner  of  a  play,  and  expressed  through  lyrical,  pictorial, 
and  plastic  aids.  The  masque  moves  in  a  more  gener 
alized  medium  than  does  the  pageant.  "The  splendor 
and  pomp  of  allegory  replaces  the  representation  of 
'people  and  villages."7  (Stevens.) 


1 52     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

COURTLY  AND  DRAMATIC  PAGEANTRY 

Though  we  have  discovered  the  substance  of  the 
pageant  and  what  it  is  not,  we  have  not  yet  discov 
ered  what  a  pageant  is.  For  we  find  that  historically 
there  are  several  types  of  ceremonies  of  widely  differ 
ent  origin  to  which  the  term  "pageant"  can  properly 
be  applied.  These  must  be  studied  for  the  light  they 
will  throw  on  the  later  developments  of  pageantry. 

First  in  order  is  what  may  be  called  "courtly  pag 
eantry."  This  type  quite  appropriately  comes  first,  not 
only  because  it  is  the  earliest  in  time,  but  because  its 
principle  is  found  as  an  influence  in  all  types  of  pag 
eantry  even  down  to  the  present.  Courtly  pageantry 
differed  from  many  forms  of  modern  pageantry  in 
that  it  was  a  solemn  function  and  expression  of  con 
stituted  authority.  As  a  feature  of  court  life  pageantry 
was  no  mere  pastime  or  festival  exercise.  It  was  the 
outward  symbol  of  the  glories  of  the  court,  or  the  mys 
tery  and  power  of  the  Church. 

In  courtly  pageantry  there  were  always  two  parties; 
those  who  in  their  own  persons  represented  the  dig 
nity  honored;  and  that  larger  number  who  as  specta 
tors  and  as  marching  legions  did  homage  in  providing 
color  and  numbers.  Pageantry  was  thus  no  unimpor 
tant  instrument  in  keeping  alive  the  illusion  of  royalty. 
It  was  not  for  nothing  that  the  Master  of  the  Revels 
was  a  high  functionary  in  the  court.  He  was,  indeed, 
a  prop  and  support  of  the  crown.  And  in  addition  to 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     153 

fostering  the  divine  right  of  kings  the  courtly  pag 
eant  provided  much  of  the  social  and  artistic  stimula 
tion  of  the  time.  The  universal  appetite  for  stirring 
ceremonies  was  satisfied  as  a  feature  of  the  common 
organization  of  society. 

In  form  the  courtly  pageant  was  usually  a  proces 
sion  executed  either  in  the  street,  or  in  a  church,  or  in 
a  room  at  court.  The  pageant  was  given  on  the  occa 
sion  of  a  visit  of  the  sovereign  to  a  town.  The  ceremony 
itself  was  called  a  "  riding. "  The  earliest  recorded 
pageant  of  this  type  is  that  given  in  1236  to  King 
Henry  III  and  Eleanor  of  Provence  on  the  occasion  of 
their  trip  from  London  to  Westminster.  In  1377,  King 
Richard  II  was  received  by  the  citizens  of  London 
with  a  pageant  which  has  been  described  by  Walsing- 
ham.  An  early  author  of  a  pageant  was  Lydgate,  who 
wrote  in  honor  of  King  Henry  IV  a  part  of  the  Pag 
eant  of  Agincourt.  A  riding  " against"  Queen  Mar 
garet,  wife  of  Henry  VI,  occurred  at  Coventry  in  1455 
in  which  there  was  representation  of  nine  worthies 
including  King  Arthur.  Margaret,  Queen  of  Scotland, 
was  welcomed  to  Aberdeen  by  a  pageant  in  which  the 
great  Emperor  Bruce  offered  addresses.  At  the  corona 
tion  of  Queen  Elizabeth  there  was  a  pageant  repre 
senting  the  joining  of  the  houses  of  Lancaster  and 
York.  And  the  subsequent  progresses  of  Elizabeth 
and  James  are  famous. 

As  has  been  said,  these  pageants  were  usually  ar 
rested  processions  in  which  gratulatory  addresses  were 


154     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

exchanged  and  some  verses  recited.  Among  the  early 
dramatists  of  the  courtly  pageants  were  Peele,  Mun- 
day,  and  Dekker.  Many  of  the  chief  pageants  of  the 
Elizabethan  age  and  of  the  seventeenth  century  were 
water  pageants.  Scott  has  described  in  "Kenilworth" 
the  water  pageantry  of  Elizabeth.  Evelyn  tells  us  of  a 
magnificent  water  pageant  which  was  given  to  greet 
the  consort  of  Charles  II,  Catherine  of  Braganza,  as 
jshe  came  to  London  from  Hampton  Court,  August  23, 
1662.  They  came  in  an  "antique-shaped  open  boat, 
covered  with  a  state  or  canopy  of  cloth  of  gold,  made 
in  form  of  a  cupola,  supported  with  high  Corinthian 
pillars  wreathed  with  flowers,  festoons,  and  garlands." 

Among  the  chief  water  pageants  were  the  Lord 
Mayor's  Pageants  which  began  in  1454,  and  were  given 
on  Lord  Mayor's  Day  every  year  for  almost  four  hun 
dred  years.  These  pageants  were  first  described  in 
1533.  For  this  pageant  magnificent  barges  were  sup 
plied  by  the  city  trading  companies,  by  the  munici 
pality,  and  by  the  court.  The  title  of  Queen's  Water 
man  was  retained  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  long 
after  the  last  Lord  Mayor's  Pageant  had  been  given 
in  the  early  forties.  The  Lord  Mayor's  Pageant  has 
been  very  recently  revived. 

Few  of  the  more  lavish  ceremonies  of  court  life  were 
revived  after  the  Civil  War.  Even  the  coronation  has 
to-day  little  of  its  former  grandeur.  The  expense  of 
coronations  fell  from  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
pounds  for  George  IV  to  less  than  one  quarter  of  that 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     155 

sum  for  Victoria  and  Edward.  To-day  the  greatest 
official  pageant  is  found  in  the  reviewing  of  troops 
on  land  and  of  the  fleet  on  sea.  The  courtly  pageant 
had  an  influence  in  setting  the  standard  of  pageantry 
in  other  unofficial  quarters.  But  as  it  has  passed  away, 
its  place  has  had  to  be  taken  by  other  forms  of  pag 
eantry  which  are  more  adapted  to  the  social  principles 
of  present  days. 

At  this  point  we  find  the  history  of  the  pageant  in 
volved  in  the  history  of  modern  drama.  To  trace  the 
early  history  of  either  the  pageant  or  the  drama  would 
lead  one  very  far  into  the  ill-defined  activities  of  primi 
tive  people.  Probably  both  pageantry  and  drama  as 
social  activities  arose  from  the  same  impulse  that  gave 
the  courtly  ceremonial  such  a  strong  hold  over  the 
imaginations  of  men.  It  would  seem  that  both  pag 
eantry  and  drama  arose  from  the  liturgy  of  the  Church, 
an  institution  that,  like  the  court,  maintained  its  dig 
nity  by  means  of  ceremony,  but,  unlike  the  court,  was 
more  socially  constituted,  and  therefore  gave  greater 
openings  for  social  initiative. 

The  means  whereby  the  pageant  developed  from  the 
church  liturgy  through  the  miracle  plays  on  Biblical 
subjects  to  later  secular  drama  belong  as  much  to  the 
field  of  history  of  drama  as  of  pageantry.  The  very 
early  Corpus  Christi  plays,  the  later  York  and  Town- 
ley  mysteries,  the  Coventry  plays  done  by  the  trading 
companies  of  the  shearmen  and  tailors  were  called 
pageants.  These  pageants  had  many  of  the  features 


156     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

lately  associated  with  pageantry.  They  were  the  real 
istic  representation  of  records,  more  or  less  authentic; 
they  were  produced  by  the  community;  and  they  were 
in  the  form  of  processions  on  wagons,  the  action  usu 
ally  taking  place  at  central  points  where  the  wagons 
were  brought  to  rest. 

But  these  pageants  still  lacked  an  indispensable 
element,  that  of  the  native  historical  record.  This  be 
gins  to  appear  even  in  the  religious  drama  when  the 
Biblical  story  is  changed  for  a  native  story.  As  early 
as  1416  there  is  record  of  a  pageant  of  St.  George 
acted  before  Emperor  Sigismund  and  Henry  V  on  the 
occasion  of  the  visit  of  the  former  to  Westminster. 
This  production  was  in  three  parts:  First,  the  arming 
of  St.  George;  second,  St.  George  riding  and  fighting 
with  the  Dragon;  third,  St.  George  and  the  King's 
daughter  leading  the  lamb  in  at  the  castle  gates.  With 
Robin  Hood  pageants  we  come  still  nearer  to  native 
elements.  These  were  based  on  ballads,  and  date  back 
to  1475  and  I55°-  With  the  Hock  Tuesday  Play  of 
Coventry  the  martial  element  appears  in  the  glorify 
ing  of  the  life  and  death  of  a  historic  hero.  It  is  not 
known  whether  this  play  commemorates  the  death  of 
Hardicanute  in  1042  or  the  massacre  of  St.  Brice  in 
1 102.  It  was  certainly  performed  as  early  as  1416,  and 
was  seen  by  Elizabeth  at  Kenilworth  in  1575.  Little 
is  known  of  its  production  save  Laneham's  witness 
that  it  was  expressed  in  " actions  and  rhymes."  By 
this  time  the  art  of  the  pageant,  like  that  of  drama, 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     157 

was  becoming  complex,  composed  in  part  of  debased 
imitations  of  courtly  ceremonies  and  in  part  of  genu 
ine  folk-lore  elements.  In  the  Midsummer  Eve  Plays, 
and  the  Hock  Tuesday  Plays,  later  in  the  interludes 
and  chronicles,  there  were  mingled,  with  episodes  as 
pathetic  as  Bottom's  ill-fated  venture  in  dramatic 
production,  intrinsic  elements  of  real  social  worth. 

It  is  now  but  a  step  to  the  chronicle  play.  With 
this  there  is  added  the  last  substance  necessary  to  the 
pageant.  For  our  purposes  the  chronicle  play  begins 
with  "The  Tragedy  of  the  King  of  Scots/'  1567,  "to 
the  which  belonged  the  scenery  of  Scotland  and  the 
great  castle  on  the  other  side."  After  this  play,  which 
has  been  lost,  come  "The  Famous  Victories  of  Henry 
V,"  "The  Life  and  Death  of  Jack  Straw,"  "The 
Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John  of  England,"  and 
chronicle  plays  by  Peele,  Marlowe,  Shakespeare,  and 
other  dramatists.  Though  no  claim  is  made  that  these 
were  pageants,  they  were  like  pageants  in  many  re 
spects.  They  were  based  on  actual  chronicles,  closely 
adhered  to;  they  were  loosely  constructed  in  series  of 
scenes;  they  were  concerned  with  the  externals  of  his 
tory,  its  battles,  marchings,  and  triumphal  crises. 
Though  they  belonged  to  the  theatre,  they  reflected 
the  more  social  temper  of  pageantry. 

RECENT  HISTORY   OF  PAGEANTRY 

It  will  not  take  long  to  deal  with  the  later  history  of 
pageantry.  The  court  of  James  I  was  highly  ceremo- 


158     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

nial,  and  pageantry  flourished  in  court  and  on  the 
stage  of  the  theatre.  With  the  great  Civil  War,  pag 
eantry  practically  disappeared,  and  the  dull  level  of  the 
theatre  of  the  eighteenth  century  reflects  the  collapse 
of  the  older  festivals  and  ceremonies  and  the  lack  of 
the  sensational  and  colorful  in  social  life.  The  begin 
nings  of  pageantry  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  de 
rived  from  the  increased  interest  in  chivalry  and  the 
antique,  of  which  romanticism  was  the  expression  and 
the  impulse.  The  man  who,  above  all,  was  respon 
sible  was  Sir  Walter  Scott,  who  in  his  novels  presented 
a  panorama  of  the  past,  and  in  "Ivanhoe,"  "The 
Talisman/'  and  "  Kenilworth "  describes  in  detail  old 
pageant  ceremonies. 

One  pageant  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  of  great 
note  for  reasons  that  will  appear.  Undoubtedly  the 
romances  of  Scott  were  the  general  inspiration  of  the 
Eglinton  Tournament,  but  the  proximate  impulse 
must  have  come  from  the  coronation  of  Queen  Vic 
toria  two  years  before.  The  dashing  young  Earl  of 
Eglinton  had  been  present  at  the  coronation  and  soon 
thereafter  called  rehearsals  for  a  magnificent  tourna 
ment  at  the  Eyre  Arms  Hotel,  west  of  London.  When 
the  tournament  was  given  late  in  August,  1834,  all  of 
the  actors  and  spectators  were  transported  to  Eglinton 
Castle  near  Irvine  in  Scotland.  The  pageant  was  made 
up  of  chivalric  ceremonials,  tourneys  of  horsemanship, 
processions  of  gayly  costumed  nobles  and  ladies  led  by 
a  marshall,  and  the  crowning  of  the  Queen  of  Beauty 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     159 

amid  her  maids  of  honor.  The  total  expenditure  was 
said  to  reach  forty  thousand  pounds.  Among  those 
who  took  part  was  the  young  Prince  Louis  Napoleon, 
later  to  be  Emperor  of  the  French,  who  engaged  in  a 
tilting  match  with  Mr.  Charles  Lamb.  The  Queen  of 
Beauty  was  the  granddaughter  of  Sheridan,  the  beau 
tiful  Lady  Seymour,  later  the  Duchess  of  Somerset. 

Even  the  weather  was  cruel  to  this  first  modern 
pageant.  It  was  given  for  three  days  under  pouring 
rain  with  spirits  that  drooped  like  the  damp  feathers. 
What  spirit  was  left  was  soon  dissipated  by  the  ridi 
cule  evoked.  The  prints  and  lampoons  of  the  romantic 
age  of  English  literature  were  far  more  censorious  of 
this  type  of  entertainment  than  are  the  critics  of  our 
later  age  of  reason.  A  burlesque  tournament  was  held 
in  Oxfordshire.  Thackeray  found  occasion  to  ridicule 
Louis  Napoleon:  "like  Mr.  Pell's  friend  in  ' Pickwick' 
in  a  suit  of  armor  and  silk  stockings."  Disraeli  made 
it  the  crowning  piece  of  descriptive  satire  of  his  novel 
"Endymion,"  as  Scott  has  made  his  description  of 
Leicester's  revels  for  Elizabeth  the  crowning  piece  of 
romance  of  "Kenilworth."  Not  for  seventy-five  years 
did  British  aristocracy  attempt  another  tournament. 

The  last  gasp  of  the  aristocratic  pageant  was  in  the 
Southern  States  of  America.  Among  those  who  at 
tended  the  Eglinton  Pageant  was  William  Gilmer,  of 
Maryland.  Returning  to  his  home  he  prepared  in  1840 
a  chivalric  tournament  at  The  Vineyard,  his  country 
place  outside  of  Baltimore.  A  similar  tournament  was 


160    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

given  at  Cowpens,  the  villa  of  the  Howards,  a  little 
later,  and  still  another  in  1850.  One  of  the  last  was 
given  at  Front  Royal  in  Virginia  in  1866.  Tourna 
ments  with  pageant  elements  have  not  been  uncom 
mon  in  the  reconstructed  South,  but  here  again  Civil 
War  was  a  fatal  intervention.  For  later  exercise  we 
must  go  to  the  folk-festivals,  the  celebration  of  Guy 
Fawkes  Day  in  New  England,  the  carnivals  of  New 
Orleans,  and  the  flower  festas  of  California,  none  of 
which  are  pageants  in  the  true  sense. 

The  precise  forces  that  brought  about  the  abrupt 
birth  of  the  modern  democratic  pageant  in  1905  are 
not  apparent.  It  is  clear  enough  that  the  general 
forces  were  the  social  and  artistic  reawakening  which 
came  with  the  beginning  of  the  century.  The  man  who 
deserves  credit  for  giving  the  first  twentieth-century 
pageant  is  the  dramatist  Louis  Napoleon  Parker,  who 
in  1905  prepared  a  pageant  for  Sherborne,  Dorset,  Eng 
land,  in  commemoration  of  the  twelve  hundredth  an 
niversary  of  the  founding  of  the  city.  Other  pageants 
soon  followed  at  Warwick,  York,  and  Oxford.  The 
same  month  and  year  in  which  the  Sherborne  Pageant 
was  given,  June,  1905,  Percy  MacKaye  and  others 
gave  the  Saint-Gaudens  Pageant  in  Cornish.  Strictly, 
this  was  probably  more  masque  than  pageant.  The 
Educational  Pageant  of  the  State  Normal  School  in 
Boston,  the  Philadelphia  Pageant  or  procession  in 
honor  of  the  two  hundred  and  twenty-fifth  anniver 
sary  of  the  founding  of  the  city,  and  the  Quebec  Pag- 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     161 

eant  were  all  held  in  1908.  Of  these  only  the  Quebec 
Pageant  possessed  both  historical  and  dramatic  ele 
ments.  The  Pageant  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  given 
in  Chicago  in  January,  1909,  lacks  the  native  element, 
but  should  be  accorded  place  as  the  first  chronicle 
pageant  produced  in  the  United  States. 

Of  the  general  mass  of  present-day  pageants  there 
remain  two  classes  which  are  of  widely  different  char 
acter.  The  first  of  these  is  the  so-called  "  Continental " 
or  "Processional"  type  of  pageant,  in  which  the  event 
and  the  ceremony  are  represented  in  a  moving  proces 
sion  of  floats  and  symbolic  figures  in  costume. 

The  second  is  the  English  or  dramatic  type,  in  which 
the  action  takes  place  on  one  spot,  or  on  a  series  of 
related  spots,  in  the  form  of  a  plot  loosely  constructed 
of  a  series  of  authentic  episodes  in  dramatic  form,  usu 
ally  comprising  speech,  action,  and  suggestive  setting. 

Both  of  these  types  of  pageant  have  their  defend 
ers.  The  chief  recent  defender  of  the  processional  type 
of  pageant  is  Dr.  Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  who  gave 
the  Philadelphia  Pageant  in  1908.  In  behalf  of  this  is 
cited  the  historical  fact  that  all  pageants  began  in  the 
processional,  first  of  church  ceremony,  later  of  wagons 
and  traveling  stages.  There  is  also  mentioned  the  fact 
that  this  type  can  reach  a  far  greater  number  of  peo 
ple  than  can  the  dramatic  pageant. 

In  spite  of  some  advantages  for  the  procession,  the 
trend  of  argument  and  critical  favor  seems  to  be 
toward  the  dramatic  type.  While  the  advocates  of  the 


1 62     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

dramatic  pageant  grant  that  historically  the  proces 
sion  came  first,  they  assert  that  in  every  case  in  which 
the  ceremony  was  permitted  to  develop  the  pageant 
became  dramatic.  In  other  words,  the  procession  first 
became  an  arrested  procession,  and  gradually  the 
value  of  the  rests  came  to  overshadow  the  value  of 
the  moving  parade.  In  the  early  pageant  plays  of  the 
guilds  of  England  the  wagon,  which  first  had  been  a 
float,  becomes  next  a  stage,  and  finally,  after  fixed 
stages  had  been  introduced,  became  a  servile  carrying 
vehicle.  The  same  tendency  is  seen  in  the  French 
pageant.  The  Pageant  of  Orleans  began  as  a  proces 
sion  and  before  it  had  gone  far  had  become  a  stage 
show. 

THE   SOCIAL  PRINCIPLES   OF  PAGEANTRY 

Our  study  of  the  substance  and  history  of  the  pag 
eant  has  brought  to  light  certain  principles  which  must 
be  observed  if  the  pageant  is  to  reach  the  highest  ef 
fectiveness.  At  the  outset  it  is  granted  that  the  pag 
eant  is  not  one  of  the  more  rigorously  formal  types  of 
art.  Indeed,  its  informality,  and  its  general  adapta 
bility,  are  its  great  advantages  as  an  instrument  of 
social  art.  But  this  informality  of  pageant  structure 
should  not  be  carried  too  far.  The  pageant  needs  to  be 
particularly  guarded  against  slipshod  workmanship, 
for  by  nature  it  has  little  inherent  structure  to  hold  it 
together. 

One  principle  that  has  already  been  discovered  is 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     163 

that  it  is  important  to  distinguish  the  pageant  from 
other  festival-art  forms.  This  must  be  done  as  well 
for  the  purposes  of  effectiveness  of  the  pageant  as 
for  its  social  usefulness.  Often  committees  announce 
pageants  when  they  mean  merely  ornamented  picnics, 
and  they  wonder  why  the  plans  of  the  director  fail  to 
harmonize  with  their  own.  To  them  he  may  seem 
unbending  and  rather  presumptuous  in  his  demands 
that  all  plans  converge  in  his.  But  the  pageant  must 
be  the  centre  of  the  festival.  It  may  well  be  a  feature 
of  a  fete-day,  but  it  must  be  the  culminating  feature. 
And  above  all  the  fete  must  not  be  called  a  pageant. 
Loose  as  it  may  be  in  its  lines  the  pageant  is  not  a  form 
of  activity  that  will  cooperate  in  a  three-ring  circus 
arrangement. 

And  so  it  is  important  that  the  pageant  shall  be 
used  only  when  the  pageant  is  called  for,  and  that 
when  used  the  pageant  shall  be  given  right  of  way. 
And  upon  what  festival  occasion  is  a  pageant  called 
for?  It  is  demanded  only  when  it  is  required  that  some 
communication  shall  be  made  to  the  audience  through 
the  medium  of  the  festival.  Like  all  other  arts  the 
pageant  is  an  art  of  focus.  It  should  be  given  only 
when  it  is  desired  to  draw  together  into  one  represen 
tation  the  spirit  of  a  day  or  an  occasion.  For  this  rea 
son  it  is  particularly  appropriate  to  give  pageants  in 
commemoration  of  historical  events.  It  is  one  of  the 
chief  advantages  of  the  pageant  as  a  social  ceremonial 
that  it  joins  a  true  play  spirit  with  this  ability  to  focus 


1 64    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

lines  of  thought.  But  the  pageant  is  not  satisfied  with 
play,  and  when  used  for  this  purpose  alone  always  fails. 
It  is  for  the  committee  to  decide  whether  the  occasion 
calls  for  games  or  pageantry. 

Another  principle  that  must  be  observed  in  pag 
eantry  is  that  the  social  is  more  important  than  the 
individual.  Though  it  belongs  in  the  class  of  dramatic 
art,  the  pageant  differs  from  drama  in  that,  while 
drama  deals  with  the  fortunes  of  individuals  and 
through  them  of  the  mass,  the  pageant  is  primarily 
concerned  with  the  mass  and  secondarily  with  the  in 
dividual.  The  virtue  of  the  pageant  is  that  it  can  por 
tray  the  surfaces  of  great  movements  and  the  relations 
of  parties.  In  this  respect  the  pageant  is  the  dramatic 
correspondent  of  the  epic.  And  like  the  epic  its  struc 
ture  is  one  of  spirits  and  magnitudes  rather  than  of 
individuals. 

The  looseness  of  the  structure  of  the  pageant  is  the 
result  of  this,  and  it  is  an  aid  in  the  expression  of  these 
generalized  groups.  The  action  is  altogether  an  ex 
ternal  one  and  is  composed,  not  of  struggles  of  organ 
ized  forces,  but  of  a  series  of  social  phenomena.  When 
there  is  struggle,  it  is  the  clash  of  large  material  groups, 
battles  of  armies,  attacks  of  forts,  the  scaling  of  walls. 
In  this  there  is  no  room  for  the  play  of  motive  or  of 
individual  impression.  The  individual  man  is  merged 
in  his  race. 

In  the  same  sense  that  the  social  is  more  important 
than  the  individual,  the  ceremony  is  more  important 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     165 

than  the  event.  The  pageant  works  through  the  in 
strument  of  the  most  palpable  effect.  Just  as  the  com 
edy  of  manners  is  built  on  the  theory  that  through  the 
convention  of  manners  the  inner  truths  of  man  are 
revealed,  the  pageant  is  raised  on  the  principle  that 
through  his  ceremonies  we  come  to  know  man  himself. 
Between  the  important  event  detached  from  any  of 
the  formalities  of  ceremony  and  the  less  important 
event  which  is  clothed  in  the  vestments  of  convention, 
the  skilled  pageant  master  always  chooses  the  latter, 
knowing  that  it  will  speak  more  clearly  to  a  large  num 
ber.  When  you  take  the  ceremonial  out  of  the  pageant 
you  take  the  thing  that  most  justifies  it  and  makes  it 
impressive. 

Though  the  pageant  refers  away  from  the  individual 
to  society,  and  from  the  event  to  the  ceremony,  it 
must  not  be  inferred  that  it  refers  away  from  the  con 
crete.  The  pageant  is  above  all  the  art  of  concrete 
representation  in  its  larger  magnitudes.  It  should  not 
at  all  be  confused  with  those  forms  of  dramatic  art 
which  represent  the  idea  by  an  abstract  symbol.  The 
purpose  of  the  pageant  is  the  re-creation  of  authentic 
mass  effects,  not  the  illumination  of  a  general  theme 
by  the  machinery  of  suggestion.  In  other  words,  the 
entire  structure  of  the  pageant  should  be  historically 
on  the  ground.  As  T.  W.  Stevens  has  said,  "The  pag 
eant  itself  will  be,  of  necessity,  a  sympathetic  treatment 
of  history,  a  visualization  of  the  past,  set  forth  mo 
ment  by  moment,  in  appearance  true  to  the  record  and 


1 66     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

fact.  It  should  be  as  easy  to  follow  as  a  well-devised 
chronicle  play.  In  its  way  it  has  a  certain  literalness. 
It  puts  the  observer  in  possession  of  the  sequence  of 
characters  and  forces  which  have  made  history." 

But  here,  lest  one  may  be  misled  by  the  precept  of 
concreteness,  as  many  are,  and  suppose  that  a  pageant 
may  be  made  of  any  series  of  historical  events  however 
selected,  another  word  of  warning  must  be  spoken. 
All  scenes  of  a  pageant  should  have  some  impelling 
force  within.  This  impelling  force  may  come  from  the 
clash  of  contending  forces;  it  may  come  from  the  sym 
pathy  aroused  in  the  audience  by  the  associations  of  a 
famous  historical  episode,  either  of  heroism,  of  sacri 
fice,  or  of  portent;  it  may  come  from  scenes  which  in 
volve  a  great  deal  of  ceremony  and  color  and  grace  in 
display;  or  it  may  be  evoked  by  the  appropriate  use 
of  stirring  music. 

This  requirement  shuts  out  many  scenes  of  purely 
verbatim  historical  discussion.  An  episode  may  be  his 
torically  never  so  important,  and  if  it  lacks  dramatic 
force  it  cannot  be  used  in  pageantry.  "Mere  talk"  is 
seldom  effective  in  the  pageant.  Where  words  are 
used  they  must  be  the  orations,  the  pronunciamentos, 
the  quick  give-and-take  of  challenge.  This  eliminates 
also  the  contemporary  scenes  of  everyday  life.  In  fact 
there  is  little  if  any  room  for  the  present  day  in  the 
theme  of  pageantry.  For  natural  scenes  are  invariably 
on  a  lower  order  of  emotional  appeal  than  the  scenes 
of  the  past.  There  is  for  them  no  social  uniformity  of 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     167 

attitude.  It  is  also  quite  impossible  to  act  these  by 
the  code  of  acting  in  use  in  pageantry.  It  seems  safe 
to  say  that  no  event  that  comes  within  the  lives  of  the 
generation  now  living  is  appropriate  for  pageant 
treatment.  It  is  only  the  event  that  stands  out  in  the 
past  that  can  be  seen  with  due  perspective,  and  this 
event  alone  possesses  the  force  that  will  carry  it  to  the 
heart.  The  argument  that  the  commonplace  events 
and  scenes  of  to-day  should  be  used  to  teach  love  of 
home  and  familiar  things  may  be  well  enough  for 
other  arts,  but  it  does  not  apply  to  pageantry. 

Another  principle  of  good  pageantry  is  that  it  should 
be  native  to  the  place  in  which  it  is  presented.  And  it 
should  be  constructive  of  the  society  that  presents  it. 
In  fact  there  is  little  justification  for  pageantry  except 
as  it  serves  these  ends.  A  pageant  referring  to  un 
familiar  and  distant  places  becomes  a  mere  show. 
The  ceremonies  which  were  rich  in  social  significance 
become  but  the  evolutions  and  manipulations  of  sen 
sational  display.  And  while  ceremony  is  the  material 
of  pageantry  it  is  not  the  end.  The  end  is  the  repre 
sentation  of  the  large  truths  of  social  life  through  the 
past  costuming  of  that  life  in  episode  and  manner  and 
dress.  The  truth  will  never  be  seen  through  the  cere 
mony  save  in  those  cases  in  which  the  answering  spirit 
is  found  in  the  audience.  It  is  only  the  native  pageant 
that  is  a  real  pageant. 

In  all  the  principles  above  suggested  there  is  in 
volved  the  further  one  that  the  pageant  is  more  an  art 


1 68     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

to  be  seen  than  to  be  heard.  The  sight  is  the  channel 
to  the  outer  mind.  The  ear  is  the  channel  to  the  under 
standing.  It  is  the  function  of  the  pageant  to  appeal 
to  the  outer  mind  of  the  senses  and  through  these  to 
the  deeper  emotions  and  appreciations.  Now  and  then 
a  pageant  is  shown  in  which  the  director  attempts  to 
carry  his  case  by  plot  or  dialogue,  by  argument,  by 
herald  or  chorus.  All  of  these  are  useful  and  necessary 
in  place,  but  they  are  so  only  when  manifestly  subor 
dinated.  Every  skillful  pageant  master  would  prefer 
to  compel  his  massed  groups  to  speak.  As  this  is  a 
difficult  thing  to  do,  he  sometimes  calls  to  his  aid  the 
appeals  of  music,  and  of  the  herald  and  chorus.  But 
still  the  principle  remains:  Sight  first;  hearing  after 
wards. 

There  is  one  principle  that  has  not  yet  been  suffi 
ciently  worked  out.  It  is  that  of  the  limitations  to  the 
appeal  of  the  pageant.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
pageant  is  an  art  of  magnitudes  it  is  not,  in  represen 
tation  at  any  rate,  an  art  of  unlimited  scope  of  appeal. 
The  sooner  the  pageant  master  decides  just  what  audi 
ence  he  wishes  to  address,  and  adapts  his  art  to  the 
requirements  of  that  audience,  the  sooner  he  will 
cease  attempting  the  impossible.  This  failure  of  ad 
justments  is  the  greatest  charge  to  be  laid  against  the 
pageant  master  of  to-day.  If  the  pageant  is  to  appeal 
to  a  hundred  thousand  people,  then  the  appeal  to  the 
ears  must  be  dismissed  except  by  means  of  orchestra 
or  brass  music  for  accompaniments,  and  mass  choruses 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     169 

and  heralds  with  megaphones  for  the  theme.  For  such 
an  audience  the  appeal  must  be  almost  altogether  to 
the  eye  or  by  orchestral  effects. 

But  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  w~iter  that  the  pageant 
is  not  an  art  for  the  hundred  thousand.  For  this  broad 
appeal  the  masque  provides  better  facilities.  The 
pageant  should  be  recognized  as  a  restricted  form, 
not  appealing  to  the  greatest  numbers  at  once.  At  its 
best  it  should  be  presented  on  a  restricted  stage  before 
an  audience  of  not  more  than  ten  or  fifteen  thousand. 
For  such  an  audience  all  the  appeal  involved  in  our 
survey  may  be  made  effectively,  but  for  a  larger  audi 
ence  something  necessary  to  the  pageant  has  to  be 
surrendered.  The  very  quality  of  historical  concrete- 
ness  in  the  pageant  requires  this  restriction  of  repre 
sentation.  When  pageant  masters  demand  that  their 
art  shall  fit  their  stage  and  their  audience,  they  will 
take  steps  toward  the  realization  of  high  principles  of 
art  in  pageantry. 

THE  ARCHITECTURE  AND  STAGING  OF  THE  PAGEANT 

The  use  of  the  term  " architecture"  indicates  that 
it  is  the  opinion  of  the  writer  that  the  pageant  is  a 
regular  structure  dependent  upon  structural  laws,  and 
subject  to  the  limitations  of  structural  requirement. 
The  difference  between  the  structure  of  the  pageant 
and  the  vague  mass  of  the  festival  is  first  seen  in  the 
fact  that  the  pageant  must  have  an  inherent  unity. 
This  unity  is  no  less  important  in  the  pageant  than  it 


i  yo     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

is  in  drama.  It  is  true  that  the  unity  of  the  pageant  is 
not  as  explicit  as  is  that  of  the  play.  In  the  play  the 
unity  is  one  not  only  of  theme,  but  of  plot  and  treat 
ment.  This  is  not  necessarily  the  case  in  the  pageant. 
The  greatest  diversity  in  method  and  in  plot  is  accep 
table  as  long  as  the  unity  of  theme  is  kept  intact.  This 
unity  is  usually  the  outgrowth  of  the  inherent  solidity 
and  congruity  of  the  historic  materials  presented. 

All  idea  of  unity  of  time  is,  of  course,  dismissed  from 
the  pageant.  But  every  pageant  depends  upon  a  clear 
time-schedule  which  of  itself  provides  some  sense  of 
time-unity.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  pageant  in 
which  the  different  scenes  do  not  represent  successive 
episodes  in  a  chain  of  history.  In  a  sense  quite  unlike 
that  in  which  the  term  was  used  in  the  time  of  Eliza 
beth,  the  pageant  is  a  "progress";  that  is,  it  deals  with 
successive  events  in  the  march  of  civilization.  And 
there  is  no  arbitrary  limit  to  the  amount  of  time  that 
may  be  suggested  in  the  process  of  the  pageant. 
Parker's  Warwick  Pageant  covers  the  time  from  the 
Druids  to  the  seventeenth  century.  The  Mid- Glouces 
tershire  Pageant  of  England  had  still  greater  scope 
and  brought  the  pageant  down  to  modern  times  over 
a  period  of  twenty-one  centuries. 

Now,  these  pageants  are  no  less  unified  than  are 
those  which  cover  a  shorter  period.  There  must  be 
recognized,  however,  the  tendency  in  all  art  to  gather 
itself  together  by  the  manipulation  of  the  materials  in 
such  a  way  that  a  large  outlook  is  seen  through  a  nar- 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     171 

row  opening.  This  tendency  has  been  seen  in  the 
pageant.  Indeed,  it  was  this  tendency  which  in  the 
history  of  the  drama  brought  an  end  to  pageant  art 
and  substituted  the  more  closely  knit  art  of  the  thea 
tre.  Already  the  tendency  is  seen  not  only  to  narrow 
the  scope  of  the  pageant,  but  to  draw  its  action  to 
gether  in  such  a  way  that  there  is  connection  between 
the  episodes.  This  is  the  method  of  the  chronicle  play. 
A  striking  illustration  of  this  tendency  is  found  in  Mr. 
John  Steven  McGroarty's  Mission  Play  of  San  Ga 
briel,  California.  Here  there  is  a  true  pageant  which  is 
at  the  same  time  something  of  a  historical  chronicle. 
This  pageant  represents  the  history  of  the  district 
through  authentic  episodes,  and  attaches  to  these  the 
dances,  the  songs,  and  ceremonies  which  are  the  diver 
tissement  of  the  action.  And  the  entire  movement  is 
compressed  within  the  limit  of  sixty-five  years.  By 
this  means  a  complete  pageant  is  made  to  centre 
around  the  life  and  spiritual  influence  of  one  man, 
Father  Serra,  the  spiritual  father  of  Lower  California. 
The  tendency  here  seen  is  found  in  less  clearly  marked 
forms  in  many  of  the  best  recent  pageants. 

Though  the  pageant  may  cover  a  long  period  of 
time  there  is  one  law  that  it  cannot  afford  to  ignore. 
This  is  the  law  of  the  economy  of  the  attention  of  the 
audience.  No  pageant  should  demand  much  more 
than  two  hours  in  the  presentation.  Anything  more 
than  that  is  given  under  handicap.  The  same  law  re 
stricts  the  number  of  episodes  that  can  profitably  be 


CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

presented.  Naturally,  no  arbitrary  number  can  be 
given.  A  large  pageant  which  is  constructed  of  dumb 
shows  and  ceremonies  may  present  more  episodes  than 
a  smaller  pageant  in  which  more  dramatic  and  exposi 
tory  action  is  presented.  In  the  former  type  there  may 
be  twenty  or  more  episodes.  In  the  latter  it  is  seldom 
advisable  to  present  more  than  eight.  The  advantage 
of  the  latter  type  in  clarity  and  force  may  be  readily 
seen. 

This  brings  us  to  another  vital  problem  of  structure 
of  the  pageant,  the  kinds  of  action  of  which  the  pag 
eant  is  made.  A  study  of  pageant  structure  shows  us 
that  the  pageant  is  made  up  of  two  separate  plots. 
The  first  may  be  called  the  " salient  plot";  and  the 
second  may  be  called  the  "contributory  plot." 

The  salient  plot  of  the  pageant  is  composed  of  all 
the  material,  usually  of  a  historic  nature,  of  the  epi 
sodes  themselves.  These  episodes  are  "dramatic  mo 
ments,"  or,  as  some  one  has  said,  "distillations"  of 
the  spirit  of  a  historic  event.  Usually  these  episodes 
are  spoken;  often  they  are  acted  in  dumb  show  or  in 
mass  actions;  sometimes  they  are  given  in  the  form 
of  tableaux  and  spectacular  arrangements.  It  is  on 
this  structure  of  the  pageant  that  historic  scholarship 
should  be  expended.  In  heraldry,  in  costume,  in  his 
toric  detail,  even  in  language,  these  should  be  carefully 
studied  and  authentic.  The  English  pageant  masters 
have  been  very  careful  to  secure  accuracy  in  this  ma 
terial.  For  the  armory  and  heraldry  of  their  pageants 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     173 

they  usually  employ  antiquarians  and  county  heralds. 
The  "Historical  Notes  to  the  York  Pageant,"  cover 
ing  matters  of  heraldry,  weapons,  and  historic  docu 
ments  made  a  book  of  seventy-six  pages. 

Aside  from  the  salient  plot  there  is  the  contributory 
plot,  and  this  must  be  clearly  distinguished  from  the 
salient  plot.  The  contributory  plot,  or,  as  it  may  be 
called,  the  "containing  plot,"  is  comprised  of  all  the 
actions  which  are  necessary  to  explain  and  unite  the 
main  plot  into  a  coherent  whole.  The  contributory 
plot  is  composed  of  prologue  and  epilogue,  link  pas 
sages,  explanatory  and  narrative  passages,  and  inter 
ludes.  The  convention  of  the  containing  plot  has  not 
been  worked  out  in  modern  times.  We  have  in  our 
catalogues  of  theatric  expedients  no  chorus  that  can 
be  accepted  without  question.  Therefore,  it  lies  pretty 
much  with  the  ingenuity  of  the  director  how  he  will 
treat  his  plot. 

The  first  purpose  of  the  contributory  plot  is  to  make 
the  action  clear  by  prior  explanations  of  episodes  and 
by  linking  up  the  connections.  The  instrument  that 
may  be  used  in  serving  this  end  varies  with  different 
pageants.  Some  pageant  masters  use  the  chorus  as 
does  Parker  in  his  Warwick  Pageant,  when  he  creates 
a  Druid  Chorus.  Other  expedients  are  that  of  a  her 
ald,  a  man-at-arms,  and  a  town  crier. 

After  the  contributory  plot  has  served  the  purpose 
of  explanation  it  has  the  further  purpose  of  elevating 
and  magnifying  the  action.  It  does  this  by  suggest- 


174     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

ing  the  larger  meanings,  the  atmosphere  of  sentiment 
or  heroism  through  which  the  scene  should  be  viewed. 
For  these  purposes  it  can  call  to  its  aid  symbolic  danc 
ing,  the  beauties  of  verse  and  elocution,  the  spiritual 
claims  of  allegory.  But  care  should  be  taken  to  make 
the  contributory  plot  truly  contributory.  If  this  ac 
tion  becomes  more  important  than  the  salient  action, 
the  whole  nature  of  the  pageant  is  vitiated. 

On  this  a  word  of  warning  is  required.  It  is  that  too 
much  care  cannot  be  taken  to  keep  the  two  plots  dis 
tinct,  and  to  subordinate  the  minor  to  the  major  plot. 
There  is  a  growing  custom  among  many  American 
pageant  masters  to  mingle  in  the  salient  plot  imagina 
tive  materials  which  belong,  if  they  should  exist  at  all, 
in  the  containing  plot.  Sometimes  an  entire  allegorical 
episode  is  introduced  in  an  attempt  to  symbolize  vague 
movements  or  spirits,  such  as  War,  Education,  Prog 
ress;  sometimes  it  is  the  personification  of  spirits  of 
nature,  Health,  Fruitfulness,  or  such  natural  objects 
as  the  local  mountain,  the  river,  or  woods. 

These  are  sometimes  represented  by  young  dancers 
who  mingle  more  or  less  closely  in  the  concrete  action, 
influencing  it  to  one  or  another  outcome.  Effective  as 
this  may  seem  at  first  glance,  it  is  a  mixing  of  values 
that  can  lead  only  to  the  downfall  of  pageantry  as  an 
art.  Nothing  is  gained  by  this  custom  but  the  confu 
sion  of  two  different  methods  of  presentation  and  the 
consequent  compromising  of  both. 

If  something  is  needed  to  break  the  dull  detail  of 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     175 

the  authentic  record,  the  contributary  plot  provides 
ample  scope.  In  this  the  English  pageant  masters, 
who  are  always  strict  in  their  code,  have  pointed  a  way. 
If  the  realistic  episodes  promise  to  be  too  unrelieved, 
they  introduce  a  full  masque  in  the  middle  of  the  ac 
tion  of  the  pageant,  but  separated  from  it.  For  the 
Oxford  Pageant,  Professor  Walter  Raleigh  wrote  a 
" Masque  of  the  Mediaeval  Curriculum,"  which  was 
introduced  between  the  sixth  and  seventh  episodes, 
and  in  the  Chelsea  Pageant  of  1908  there  was 
introduced  a  children's  masque  of  "The  Faerie 
Queene." 

The  care  taken  in  keeping  the  pageant  true  to  type 
in  symbolism  and  allegory  should  also  be  shown  in  the 
handling  of  music  and  dancing.  And  this  requires  a 
firm  hand  in  the  pageant  master  both  for  the  reason 
that  these  arts  are  very  tempting  through  their  easy 
appeal  to  the  audience,  and  also  because  those  in 
charge  of  these  features  are  likely  to  press  their  claims. 
Music  and  dancing  are  excellent  in  their  place,  and 
may  even  be  introduced  into  the  body  of  the  salient 
action.  But  when  this  is  done  it  should  be  clear  that 
they  are  associated  with  the  plot.  Music,  dances,  and 
folk-lore  elements  when  introduced  should  be  justified 
by  the  action  itself.  Thus,  in  the  Warwick  Pageant 
dances  and  f£tes  are  introduced  as  before  Queen  Eliza 
beth.  The  judicious  are  made  to  grieve  when  a  dance  is 
introduced  to  interpret  symbolically  a  concrete  action, 
or  when  a  lyrical  narrative  is  introduced  amidst  the 


176    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

action  to  tell  what  is  going  on.  For  the  dance  does 
not  interpret  nor  does  the  lyric  narrate.  It  is  the  use 
of  the  vague  abstract  to  serve  the  clear  concrete,  the 
weighing-down  of  the  music  and  dancing  with  meaning 
that  is  a  clog  to  its  freedom. 

This  is  not  a  book  of  instructions  to  pageant  mas 
ters  on  the  staging  of  the  pageant.  No  attention  is 
given  to  such  matters  as  the  choice  of  committees,  the 
assignment  of  tasks,  the  choice  of  costumes,  the  laying- 
out  of  the  ground,  the  selection  and  training  of  the 
actors,  for  the  reason  that  these  are  things  that  are 
learned  by  doing  rather  than  precept.  There  are,  how 
ever,  some  matters  connected  with  the  staging  of  the 
pageant  on  which  precept  may  not  be  amiss. 

First,  as  to  the  position  of  the  pageant  stage  there 
are  some  simple  considerations.  If,  as  is  probable,  we 
are  to  accept  the  dramatic  type  of  pageant,  the  choice 
of  a  stage  is  an  important  item.  We  often  hear  of 
pageants,  which  required  the  cooperative  work  of  hun 
dreds  of  people  through  weeks  of  time,  going  to  waste 
on  account  of  a  poor  stage  location.  The  principles 
upon  which  the  stage  should  be  selected  are  two: 
First,  that  it  should  provide  proper  audience  accom 
modations;  second,  that  it  should  possess  a  proper 
background.  If  the  pageant  is  to  satisfy  its  purposes 
at  all,  the  first  consideration  of  location  is  that  it  shall 
be  clearly  within  sight  of  the  audience.  This  in  fact 
demands  a  slight  incline  sloping  down  to  the  stage,  as 
pageant  crowds  are  usually  so  large  that  it  is  inadvis- 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     177 

able  to  build  grandstands  or  bleachers  of  any  height. 

The  background  of  the  pageant  stage  comes  second 
in  importance  to  the  audience  slope.  Directors  have 
been  known  to  place  their  performances  on  the  slope 
of  a  hill  above  their  audience  on  the  plea  that  the  back 
ground  justified  the  position.  Of  what  value  a  back 
ground  would  be  to  a  pageant  that  could  not  be  seen 
was  perhaps  not  considered.  But  given  a  proper  audi 
ence  room  the  background  is  exceedingly  important  to 
the  success  of  the  pageant.  The  pageant  is  not  a  circus 
or  a  fair  and  should  not  be  placed  in  the  midst  of  an 
open  field  with  audience  on  all  sides.  A  clean-cut 
background,  whether  of  building  or  trees  and  hills,  is 
of  great  value  in  emphasizing  the  unity  of  the  pageant. 
The  background  of  old  buildings  and  ruins,  as  of  War 
wick  Castle,  and  the  background  of  distant  river  and 
mountains,  as  at  Quebec,  were  so  adequate  that  they 
were  indeed  a  part  of  the  pageant. 

There  are  a  few  principles  of  scenery  which  can  be 
summarized.  First,  whatever  the  background,  whether 
of  nature  or  buildings,  use  it  to  its  fullest  effective 
ness  for  all  scenes.  Second,  avoid  as  far  as  possible 
the  necessity  of  erecting  scenery  for  separate  episodes. 
When  the  background  needs  supplementing,  erect 
battlements  and  buildings  of  an  ambiguous  type  as 
was  done  for  the  Oxford  Pageant.  Third,  as  far  as 
possible  make  scenery  immovable  and  use  it  for  differ 
ent  purposes.  The  writer  is  convinced  that  realistic 
painted  scenery  is  a  drawback  to  the  pageant. 


178     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

THE  PAGEANT  IN  AMERICA 

It  is  unnecessary  to  enlarge  on  the  social  uses  of  the 
pageant.  As  an  awakener  of  social  spirit  and  commun 
ity  cooperation  the  pageant  is  well  appreciated.  Let 
any  one  who  is  unaware  of  this  look  through  the 
indexes  to  current  periodicals  for  references  to  the 
pageant.  All  over  the  country  the  pageant  is  actively 
showing  the  sweetness  and  reality  of  village  life,  the 
richness  and  dignity  of  our  yesterdays.  It  is  calling 
people  back  from  vague  discontent  to  the  discovery  of 
the  wealth  at  their  own  doors.  It  is  uncovering  the 
mementoes  of  the  past,  and  ransacking  attics  for  the 
costumes,  the  spinning-wheels,  the  furniture,  the  old 
shawls  and  lace  of  our  mothers  and  grandmothers.  It 
is  serving  the  cause  of  the  homely  virtues  and  the 
healthy  sentiments.  More  than  that,  it  is  extending  a 
hand  of  brotherhood  across  the  world.  Sherborne, 
Oxford,  Warwick,  York  all  made  room  in  their  cere 
monies  for  towns  of  the  same  name  the  world  over. 

Naturally,  such  an  instrument  as  this  does  not  pass 
unnoticed  by  those  who  have  a  programme  to  promul 
gate.  Already  people  are  using  it  to  establish  a  num 
ber  of  cases  from  the  right  of  women  to  the  vote  to  the 
necessity  of  "swatting  the  fly."  And  for  these  pur 
poses  the  pageant  serves  effectively  and  well,  although 
now  and  then  it  is  seen  almost  to  break  under  the  bur 
den  of  its  earnest  message  of  self-conscious  betterment. 
When  put  to  its  best  use  it  is  always  ready  to  fill  a 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     179 

social  gap,  to  serve  as  a  high  social  substitute  for  lower 
social  activities,  to  engage  a  leisure  hour,  and  to  give 
expression  and  direction  to  the  wayward  impulses  of  a 
newly  awakened  society. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  we  in  America  have  not  the 
rich  background  for  pageantry  that  Great  Britain  can 
show.  Our  pageants  cannot  go  back  to  Caesar  or  Cym- 
beline.  Naturally,  this  fact  has  an  influence  on  the 
type  of  pageantry  presented  in  this  country.  Lacking 
the  ordered  and  more  cultivated  stretches  of  history 
of  older  countries,  our  writers  of  pageant  are  called 
upon  themselves  to  isolate  the  stimulating  moments 
of  a  history  that  was  largely  one  of  hardships  and  pio 
neering  rather  than  one  of  ceremonies.  In  the  rather 
drab  background  of  our  history  the  Indian  legends, 
and  the  shifting  civilizations  of  the  red  man  and  the 
whites,  the  Spaniards,  the  French,  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  present  the  four  touches  of  real  color.  But 
it  is  real  color,  and  the  pageant-maker  has  not  yet 
mixed  his  materials  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  its 
possibilities. 

Too  easily  assuming  a  lack  of  glories  in  the  past, 
some  directors  are  centring  their  attention  in  the 
present  and  throwing  into  high  relief  the  wonders 
of  present  "achievement."  Any  such  glorification  of 
the  present  must  come  with  a  bad  grace.  And  with 
even  poorer  grace  comes  the  custom  of  some  of  pre 
senting  the  past  as  a  crude  and  shameful  background 
for  "present  enlightenment  and  progress."  Aside  from 


i8o    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

the  bad  taste  of  this  attitude  it  is  quite  lacking  in 
truthful  perspective.  Without  reverence  there  can  be 
no  art.  And  in  self-vaunting  there  can  be  neither  art 
nor  social  welfare.  The  good  pageant  is  one  that 
strives  to  make  us  worthy  of  our  yesterdays  by  en 
riching  their  promise. 

We  have  seen  evidences  of  the  broad  distribution  of 
the  pageant,  its  genuinely  social  quality,  its  fidelity  to 
many  of  the  principles  of  primitive  art.  It  remains  now 
only  to  say  that  all  indications  show  that  the  pageant 
is  not  a  fixed  but  a  tentative  art  form,  that  it  repre 
sents  one  stage  in  the  development  from  the  lowest  to 
the  higher  forms  of  dramatic  expression.  This  is  shown 
both  by  its  history  and  by  its  inherent  character.  His 
torically  the  pageant  has  always  appeared  early  in  the 
development  of  national  drama.  It  arose  after  the 
rude  and  disconnected  ceremonies  of  the  religious  or 
folk  festival  had  been  gathered  to  focus  in  one  action. 
It  represented  the  external  drama  of  the  nation  or  the 
province.  It  satisfied  the  broader  motives  of  national 
feeling,  but  it  gave  no  scope  to  the  study  of  the  inner 
motives  of  men  or  the  revelation  of  their  secret  souls 
and  their  higher  yearnings.  Historically  the  pageant 
form  has  always  given  way  to  the  stricter  forms  of 
drama  in  which  motives  count  more  than  actions,  and 
spirit  than  flesh.  The  structure  of  the  modern  pageant 
confirms  this.  This  pageant  has  already  accomplished 
much  in  providing  work  for  idle  hands,  in  drawing  to- 


FESTIVALS  AND  PAGEANTRY     181 

gather  many  people  in  the  service  of  beauty.  It  has 
done  much  to  discover  the  broad  and  palpable  facts  of 
our  national  backgrounds  of  nature  and  history.  But 
already  its  limitations  are  becoming  apparent.  When 
one  desires  to  express  a  more  spiritual  message  he  finds 
the  pageant  inert  and  helpless.  From  it  he  then  tends 
to  turn  to  other  forms  of  dramatic  art  in  which  his 
meaning  may  be  more  appropriately  bodied  forth. 
And  then  he  turns  to  the  masque  or  the  formal  drama. 
The  best  thing  that  the  pageant  can  do  is  to  create  its 
own  place  in  the  heart  of  America  and  then  give  way 
to  other  forms.  The  best  mark  of  its  success  will  be 
that  it  compels  the  demand  for  the  service  of  other 
higher  forms  and  so  renders  itself  unnecessary.  And 
apparently  this  is  the  process  that  is  taking  place. 
Those  who  are  looking  for  an  American  drama  will  not 
fail  to  note  this  portent. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PROMISE   OF  AN  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

IN  our  study  thus  far  we  have  continually  used  the 
terms  "American"  and  " American  drama"  without 
making  any  effort  to  define  the  one  or  locate  the  other. 
And  yet  in  these  two  terms  there  lies  whatever  sig 
nificance  there  may  be  found  in  this  book.  For  if, 
as  many  think,  the  term  "American"  has  not  yet 
achieved  a  connotation  of  its  own,  then  indeed  our 
drama  cannot  yet  be  defined.  If,  furthermore,  and  this 
we  hold  to  be  the  case,  drama  itself  may  serve  as  an 
instrument  by  which  the  meaning  of  America  may  be 
realized,  then  our  problem  resolves  itself  into  an  im 
mediate  study  of  the  promise  of  dramatic  art  as  an 
exponent  of  American  life  and  spirit.  To  introduce 
this  study  three  questions  may  be  appropriate:  First, 
What  steps,  if  any,  have  been  taken  toward  the 
achievement  of  a  distinctively  American  drama? 
Second,  What  is  the  promise  of  their  early  success? 
Third,  What  form  will  the  drama  take  when  it  ap 
pears,  if  appear  it  does? 

Now,  answers  to  these  questions  have  been  implied 
in  much  that  has  been  said  in  these  pages.  It  will  be 
our  purpose  in  this  chapter  to  sum  up  what  has  gone 
before  and  give  it  a  particular  focus.  In  answer  to  the 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     183 

first  question,  it  may  be  said  that  American  society 
is  now  very  active  in  measures  that  should  lead  toward 
an  American  drama.  In  this  there  is  implied  the  an 
swer  to  the  second  question,  which  is  that  many  proc 
esses  which  have  been  at  work  for  a  long  time,  and 
other  processes  which  are  now  beginning,  seem  to 
promise  a  not  far  distant  consummation  in  a  dramatic 
art  of  the  twentieth  century.  And  in  answer  to  the 
third  question,  it  must  be  said,  how  tritely  the  author 
is  aware,  that  we  can  look  for  the  substance  and  form 
of  the  American  play  only  in  the  substance  and  form  of 
American  life.  There  are  no  laws  for  art  other  than  the 
laws  by  which  men  govern  themselves,  and  there  is 
no  material  of  dramatic  art  other  than  the  substance 
of  mankind. 

THE  NEW  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  AMERICAN  THEATRE 

In  speaking  of  the  coming  American  play  we  need 
to  be  careful  to  emphasize  an  idea  that  has  all  along 
been  implied  in  this  book.  That  is,  that  the  dramatic 
art  of  a  period  is  made  up  not  alone  of  the  plays  that 
are  presented,  but  of  the  entire  institution  of  the 
theatre  of  the  time,  comprising  its  actors,  its  produc 
ers,  its  managers,  its  agents,  its  many  artists  and 
workers,  as  well  as  its  writers.  The  drama  of  the  time 
is  the  whole  institution  of  the  stage  of  the  time.  In 
looking  forward  to  an  American  drama,  therefore,  we 
cannot  limit  ourselves  to  the  play  itself.  We  cannot 
even  consider  this  first.  Before  we  can  consider  the 


1 84     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

play  we  must  study  the  machinery  upon  which  rests 
the  relationship  between  the  play  and  its  audience. 
The  drama  is  quite  as  much  a  matter  of  organization 
as  it  is  of  art  composition.  The  promise  of  American 
drama  lies,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  as  much  in  reorgan 
ization  as  in  new  forms  of  playwriting,  and  no  less 
in  new  methods  of  business  than  in  new  principles 
of  art. 

It  may  be  said  that  a  healthy  and  normal  organiza 
tion  of  the  theatre,  an  organization  that  adapts  it 
self  to  the  social  life  of  the  people  in  a  direct  way,  is 
the  first  prerequisite  of  dramatic  art.  To  the  extent 
that  America  differs  from  other  nations  in  social  con 
stitution,  in  geographical  distribution,  and  political 
ideals,  its  organization  of  the  art  of  the  theatre  should 
differ  from  that  of  other  nations.  We  may  learn 
much  on  theatrical  organization  from  the  systems  of 
the  Continent,  but  what  we  learn  should  be  in  mat 
ters  of  principles  rather  than  of  methods.  In  the  end 
the  problem  of  theatrical  organization  must  be  solved 
by  Americans  in  the  American  way.  It  is  a  compara 
tively  late  discovery,  and  one  that  still  requires  some 
courage  in  its  application,  that  the  strongly  marked 
characteristics  of  a  nation  are  always  its  opportuni 
ties  in  art  rather  than  its  drawbacks.  The  trouble 
with  our  artists  has  been  that  they  have  attempted  to 
impose  on  America  artistic  codes  and  systems  that 
have  been  borrowed  from  other  countries.  Because 
they  have  been  unable  to  do  so  they  have  bewailed 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     185 

our  unreadiness  for  art.  The  time  is  coming  when 
American  life  itself  will  provide  our  materials  and 
American  standards  will  supply  our  form  as  well  in 
organization  as  in  technique.  Then  only  shall  we  be 
able  to  speak  of  an  American  art  of  the  theatre. 

American  drama  has  been  seriously  hampered  by 
the  fact  that  the  organization  upon  which  the  drama 
depends  and  from  which  it  draws  its  support  is 
un-American  and  is  not  directed  to  the  needs  of  the 
American  people.  I  am  not  now  referring  to  the  na 
tionality  of  the  business  men  of  the  theatre,  for  this 
is  of  no  consequence.  Nor  do  I  question  that  the  or 
ganization  of  the  theatre  has  paralleled  the  organiza 
tion  of  other  big  business  in  centralization  and  system 
of  distribution.  But  it  is  greatly  to  be  questioned 
whether  the  American  manager  has  shown  the  keen 
knowledge  of  his  wares,  the  shrewd  insight  into  the  de 
mands  of  his  patronage,  that  have  characterized  the 
national  distributors  in  other  lines  of  merchandise. 
For  one  thing  the  American  theatre  has  been  organ 
ized  on  the  basis  of  an  imported  rather  than  a  do 
mestic  art.  New  York,  which  is  the  centre  of  theatre 
organization,  is  theatrically  much  nearer  Europe  than 
it  is  to  the  rest  of  the  country.  And  the  organization 
of  the  theatre  was  based  upon  the  principle  of  an  im 
porting  institution,  with  headquarters  at  the  sea 
board,  and  distributing  offices  scattered  over  the 
country.  The  man  at  the  head  of  the  institution 
did  not  know  his  wares  and  did  not  know  his  audi- 


1 86     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

ences.  He  was  innocent  of  any  conception  of  the  fact 
that  in  an  art  there  should  always  be  maintained  a 
close  relationship  between  the  source  of  supply  and 
the  consumer.  The  result  has  been  the  establishment 
of  a  single  un-American  centre  of  judgment  for  Ameri 
can  plays  which  has  dominated  the  playwright  to  his 
hurt  and  alienated  the  consumers  of  the  nation.  In  an 
art,  the  very  life  of  which  depends  upon  a  close  inti 
macy  with  the  life  of  society,  such  a  system  of  organi 
zation  is  fatal.  And  the  problem  is  intensified  by  the 
broad  area  of  the  country  and  its  diversity  of  sectional 
point  of  view. 

Most  of  the  suggestions  which  have  been  made  for 
the  reorganization  of  the  American  theatre  are  in  their 
way  as  faulty  as  the  organization  they  would  attempt 
to  displace.  Building  on  the  theory  of  the  Comedie 
Franchise,  men  have  argued  for  a  National  American 
Theatre  in  Washington  or  Chicago  which  should  in 
these  centres  draw  together  the  best  standards  of  the 
nation  in  one  high  focus.  Such  a  suggestion  is  futile. 
Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  fact  that  the  Comedie 
Frangaise  was  established  under  a  different  regime 
from  that  of  the  present,  and  now  very  imperfectly 
serves  France,  there  remains  the  further  fact  that  the 
United  States  is  far  larger  in  area  than  France  and 
very  much  more  diversified  in  social  and  race  charac 
ter.  No  single  national  theatre  could  ever  live  as  such 
in  this  country  for  two  years.  If  it  survived,  it  would 
be  as  a  local  institution  of  high  standard,  supported  by 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     187 

the  community,  and  serviceable  at  a  distance  only  as 
an  indirect  influence. 

Another  suggestion  often  made  is  based  upon  the 
system  of  Germany.  It  is  that  the  separate  States  or 
municipalities  should  establish  and  support  by  state 
grant  subsidized  theatres  to  serve  the  local  commun 
ity  in  which  they  are  placed.  Though  this  comes  far 
nearer  reason  than  the  former  scheme,  it,  too,  is  pro 
pounded  with  little  reference  to  our  system  of  society. 
The  State  is  neither  ready  nor  is  it  able  under  our 
codes  to  support  a  state  theatre  upon  a  basis  worthy 
of  consideration.  If  it  is  to  be  a  theatre  for  the  many, 
there  is  no  need  of  state  interference;  and  a  theatre 
for  the  few  could  hardly  claim  state  support.  Both 
artistically  and  financially  the  state  theatre  might  ex 
change  for  the  evils  we  have  evils  that  are  quite  as 
serious.  And  little  is  to  be  expected  from  subsidy  by 
private  beneficence.  There  would  be  in  this  some  en 
couragement  to  experiment,  and  some  support  of  the 
art  in  its  unproductive  years,  but  the  necessary  thing, 
without  which  we  shall  never  have  a  theatre  of  our 
own,  the  immediate  contact  with  the  life  and  organi 
zation  of  the  people,  would  be  lacking.  In  the  end  it 
will  be  from  the  people  themselves,  and  the  people 
alone,  that  the  art  will  come. 

Though  the  two  revolutionary  suggestions  that  are 
based  on  old-world  models  seem  hardly  to  promise  im 
provement  in  American  theatrical  organization,  we 
need  not  necessarily  despair  of  change  for  the  better. 


1 88     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

For  if  we  turn  our  eyes  from  Europe  to  our  own  coun 
try,  we  shall  find  at  home,  working  out  of  the  proc 
esses  of  our  society,  new  forms  of  organization  that 
are  far  in  advance  of  any  that  have  hitherto  been 
tried.  A  survey  of  present  conditions  and  future 
promise  in  America  shows  some  interesting  develop 
ments  that  are  not  without  their  elements  of  hope. 
In  the  first  place,  we  see  now  that  the  syndicate 
system  has  all  along  contained  the  germs  of  its  own 
undoing.  The  syndicate  system  has  not  been  the  suc 
cess  that  its  friends  and  most  fearful  opponents  sup 
posed  it  to  be.  It  was  too  unwieldy.  The  district  it 
had  to  cover  was  too  large.  And  there  never  was  and 
never  could  be  complete  monopoly  in  the  hands  of  one 
person  or  set  of  persons.  The  system  came  very  near 
to  monopoly,  but  it  always  contained  an  element  of 
the  unmanageable,  which  was  unsatisfied  local  inter 
est.  This  local  interest  has  effectually  weakened  the 
syndicate  by  striking  a  blow  at  the  whole  system  of 
theatrical  organization  in  America  of  the  present.  For 
years  the  syndicate  existed  by  adroitly  compromising 
with  new  masterful  figures  .that  arose  in  Portland, 
Los  Angeles,  Chicago,  and  Syracuse.  Its  power  was 
therefore  no  power.  It  was  a  semblance  of  power 
based  upon  successive  compromise.  And  in  the  end 
the  syndicate  came  to  be  but  a  name.  Ruled  from 
New  York,  and  out  of  touch  with  the  provinces,  it  was 
doomed  from  the  start  by  the  vitality  of  local  inter 
ests.  And  to-day  these  local  interests  are  becoming 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     189 

stronger  every  hour,  and  the  fact  that  strong  men 
were  soon  placated  and  organized  into  the  system  does 
not  vitiate  at  all  the  fact  of  their  power  or  the  signifi 
cance  of  its  sources.  These  men  were  significant  not 
because  they  beat  the  syndicate  on  its  own  ground, 
but  because  they  beat  the  syndicate  on  their  own 
ground.  They  showed  that  the  ultimate  power  of  the 
future  lies  in  the  local  circuit,  supported  from  a  centre 
and  created  from  the  life  of  a  district.  That  a  district 
will  support  its  own  theatres  irrespective  of  New  York 
has  now  been  clearly  established  in  experience.  The 
significance  of  this  fact  for  a  coming  American  drama 
can  only  be  suggested. 

Incident  to  the  gradual  loosening  of  power  of  the 
syndicate  there  has  proceeded  the  gradual  strengthen 
ing  of  the  movements  for  local  theatres.  This  has  not 
applied  to  the  professional  organization  of  the  theatre. 
It  is  too  late  to  restore  the  fortunes  of  those  theatres 
from  which  the  life  was  sapped  by  the  extra-territorial 
control.  The  movement  had  to  be  one  altogether  of 
reconstruction.  As  a  rule  this  is  a  movement  from 
outside  the  theatre.  It  is  participated  in  by  thousands 
of  men  and  women  who  see  that  the  theatre  has  failed 
of  its  opportunity,  and  in  the  amateur  and  professional 
field  are  determined  to  bring  the  theatre  back  to  a 
closer  touch  with  the  life  of  the  district.  It  has,  indeed, 
been  fortunate  that  the  movement  has  come  apart 
from  the  theatre,  that  it  has  secured  little  from  the 
established  institution  of  the  stage,  for  it  has  called 


1 90    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

into  the  service  of  social  amusement  and  art  thou 
sands  of  men  and  women  of  vision  who  in  other  times 
have  been  alienated  from  the  stage.  The  number  of 
these  local  theatre  movements  is  legion.  The  local 
theatre  movements  of  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Chicago, 
Milwaukee,  Madison;  the  work  of  producing  societies 
such  as  the  Wisconsin  Dramatic  Society,  the  Chicago 
Theatre  Society,  Donald  Robertson's  Players,  the 
Drama  Society  of  New  York,  the  Stage  Society  of  New 
York;  the  work  of  the  open-air  theatre  producers  of 
Point  Loma,  Berkeley,  the  Harvard  Stadium,  and 
Carmel  by  the  Sea;  the  work  of  the  Little  Country 
Theatre;  the  noteworthy  achievement  of  the  Bohemian 
Club  of  California,  all  point  to  the  leavening  of  the 
mass  by  new  principles  of  organization  outside  the 
established  theatre.  These  are  being  aided  by  the 
colleges,  which  are  studying  organization  as  a  feature 
of  the  problem  of  dramatic  art,  and  are  serving  as 
busy  producing  centres,  and  by  the  inauguration  of 
the  Carnegie  School  of  Drama  at  Pittsburg,  which  is 
supplying  a  new  model  of  organization  of  a  theatre  in 
connection  with  an  established  institution. 

The  best  of  this  movement  is  that  it  does  not  end 
with  merely  leavening  the  social  lump.  The  first  ne 
cessity  these  local  theatres  face  is  that  of  finding 
plays,  adequate  in  standard  and  appropriate  in  length 
and  character.  Whether  organized  to  support  the  new 
drama  or  not,  these  local  companies  are  soon  led  to 
the  use  of  original  plays.  Often  they  begin  with  the 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     191 

newest  thing  in  the  English  and  Continental  field,  and 
from  these  go  by  gradual  stages  to  the  presentation  of 
plays  of  the  province.  And  this  is  in  truth  and  strict 
honor  the  destiny  of  such  societies.  They  are  not  even 
attacking  their  problem  unless  they  undertake  frankly 
and  fairly  the  production  of  American  plays.  I  think 
of  the  words  of  Donald  Robertson,  who  will  be  honored 
as  the  beginner  of  much  that  is  now  coming  to  pass. 
He  said,  "The  justification  of  a  repertory  theatre  is  to 
play  its  own  plays  and  to  go  for  inspiration  to  the  mas 
ters."  It  is  no  mere  matter  of  policy,  this  production 
of  home  plays.  It  is  a  matter  of  the  life  of  the  insti 
tution  and  the  honesty  of  its  spirit.  One  should  not 
need  to  argue  against  the  borrowed  or  transplanted 
spirit.  The  simple  fact  is  that  there  is  no  borrowed 
or  transplanted  spirit.  The  spirit  either  lives  or  it  dies, 
and  it  lives  only  in  its  own  habitat.  The  trouble  with 
our  drama  in  the  past  has  been  that  it  has  been 
an  errant  drama,  without  home,  without  roots,  with 
out  soil.  There  is  no  wonder  that  it  soon  lost  its 
life. 

The  living  play  must  be  presented  by  an  institution 
which  itself  lives  in  the  social  life  of  the  district.  This 
the  theatre  has  forgotten;  and  society  has  therefore 
left  the  theatre,  and  has  proceeded  to  nurture  new 
organisms  outside  the  theatre.  And  these  organisms 
will  fail  of  their  purpose  if  they  fail  to  flower  in  Ameri 
can  plays.  Those  who  feel  the  full  strength  of  this 
truth  are  often  counseled  to  hesitate  on  account  of 


1 92     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

the  necessary  crudity  of  the  play  in  an  early  period  of 
its  development.  The  American  play  of  the  present, 
it  is  said,  is  far  behind  the  better  standards  of  taste  of 
the  American  people.  A  critic  who  argues  in  this  way 
fails  to  value  deeply  enough  the  essential  qualities 
of  a  piece  of  art,  that  it  be  sincere  and  not  self-con 
scious.  Given  these  qualities  and  others  may  follow. 
Violate  them,  and  no  amount  of  dexterity  and  tech 
nique  will  save  the  play.  No  plea  of  the  greater  skill 
or  artistry  of  the  foreign  play  should  be  permitted  to 
induce  a  manager  to  give  all  his  place  to  plays  from 
other  lands.  The  task  now  is  to  discover  the  genuine 
American  play,  and  theatres  may  indeed  be  judged 
for  their  virility,  courage,  and  social  value  by  their 
fidelity  to  the  American  standard.  Naturally,  this  is 
the  more  difficult  task,  for  it  lacks  the  aids  of  foreign 
judgments.  But  it  is  the  task  that  will  bring  the 
greater  reward.  In  spite  of  its  difficulty  it  is  the  task 
that  the  little  theatres,  the  local  experimental  thea 
tres,  are  called  upon  to  do.  They  are  particularly 
qualified  to  do  it,  for  they  have  neither  traditions  to 
uphold  nor  dividends  to  pay.  Upon  their  assumption 
of  the  task  will  depend  the  place  they  will  take  in  the 
future  history  of  the  American  theatre. 

THE  PRELIMINARY  FORMS   OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

In  another  respect,  quite  apart  from  systems  of 
organization,  there  seems  to  be  on  the  way  a  move 
ment  for  the  American  motive  in  dramatic  art.  This 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     193 

is  in  the  spontaneous  development  during  the  last  ten 
years  of  the  system  of  social  festival,  pageantry,  and 
masque.  The  importance  of  this  movement  from  the 
point  of  view  of  dramatic  art  is  very  great.  The 
movement  begins  not  as  art,  but  as  spontaneous 
social  activity.  It  is  the  outgrowth  of  newly  released 
powers  seeking  avenues  of  expression.  It  is  valuable 
as  a  utilization  of  the  leisure  hours  of  city  people. 
It  means  the  spirit  of  health  finding  constructive 
means  to  combat  the  insidious  dangers  of  the  wasted 
hour.  The  festival,  whether  on  the  village  green,  in 
the  city  park,  on  the  campus  of  the  college,  or  in  the 
crowded  settlement,  is  corrective  and  creative.  By 
the  terms  of  its  existence,  it  must  be  built  of  the 
substance  of  its  surroundings.  It  is  composed  of  epi 
sodes  from  the  lore  of  the  folk  comprising  the  district. 
It  is  subject  to  no  trammels  of  organization  or  prece 
dent.  Indeed,  it  is  often  without  organization,  or  it 
provides  its  own  organization  out  of  the  instruments  at 
hand.  Herein  lies  a  great  portion  of  the  significance 
of  the  festival  movement  and  its  promise  for  a  future 
American  drama.  It  utilizes  the  machinery  of  the 
school,  the  church,  the  settlement,  the  club,  and  brings 
dramatic  art  back  to  the  sources  from  which  it  has  al 
ways  sprung,  the  social  life  of  the  people.  It  connects 
itself  with  their  interests,  and  is  governed  by  their 
forms.  Its  rules  are  derived  from  the  rules  by  which 
they  live,  and  its  spirit  is  their  spirit.  Drama  and 
amusement  alike  have  long  forgotten  this  truth,  and 


194     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

so  they  have  become  alienated  from  the  interests  and 
the  support  of  the  people. 

In  this,  too,  there  is  found  much  of  the  significance 
of  educational  dramatics  and  the  dramatics  of  propa 
ganda.  People  have  discovered  that  this  art,  which 
was  formerly  altogether  out  of  their  hands,  really  be 
longs  to  them,  that  it  is  made  of  their  substance,  sup 
ported  by  their  life,  and  that  it  dies  when  they  desert 
it.  They  have  lost  their  contempt  for  the  amateur, 
their  mystic  veneration  of  the  professional,  their  many 
illusions  as  to  the  stage,  illusions  that  it  was  the  care 
of  the  artificial  theatre  to  foster,  and  they  have  taken 
dramatic  activities  part  and  total  back  into  their  own 
hands.  They  have  ceased  to  be  auditors  and  have  be 
come  participants,  ceased  to  be  recipients  and  have 
become  givers,  ceased  to  be  the  exploited  and  have 
begun  to  use  the  drama  in  its  manifold  forms,  for  the 
education  of  their  youth,  for  the  exposition  of  their 
problems,  for  the  expression  of  their  lives,  and  for  the 
lightening  of  their  leisure  hour.  That  no  great  play 
has  as  yet  come  is  no  indication  that  this  movement 
has  failed,  or  that  this  readoption  of  the  theatre  by 
the  people  has  done  other  than  provide  a  clear  road  of 
progress  for  the  genuine  drama  of  the  future. 

So  far  we  have  loosely  referred  to  the  festival  and 
the  social  play  hour  as  dramatic.  They  are  in  fact 
only  dramatic  in  tendency.  But  movements  flower 
rapidly  under  the  processes  of  these  days.  "First  the 
corn,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  blade  in  the  ear."  And 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     195 

men  now  living  may  see  the  full  blade  grow  from  the 
com.  The  festivals  of  the  social  leisure  hour  are  al 
ready  taking  on  a  form  that  parallels  the  forms  of 
drama  when  the  art  was  young.  In  the  chapter  on  the 
pageant  it  was  shown  that  the  pageant  had  developed 
in  a  decade  to  an  important  place  in  the  social  and  art 
status  of  the  nation.  The  pageant  is  the  outgrowth  of 
that  settling  movement,  that  tendency  to  form  and 
certainty,  to  unity  and  expressiveness,  that  always 
follows  hard  on  any  vital  revolution.  The  pageant 
is  an  artistic  settling  of  social  values.  It  is  crude  as 
yet,  no  doubt,  yet  even  in  its  crude  form  is  governed 
by  the  principles  that  conduce  to  a  fresh  and  expres 
sive  art.  The  pageant  is  made  of  the  life  of  the  people, 
it  is  formed  by  themselves,  it  deals  objectively  and 
not  profoundly  with  the  externals  of  their  lives,  it  re 
spects  the  past  and  builds  upon  it,  it  venerates  the  fu 
ture  and  prepares  for  it.  It  is  common,  democratic, 
universal,  not  too  subtle,  yet  capable  of  a  strong  and 
dignified  beauty,  a  clear  and  trumpet  message.  The 
pageant  is  not  a  self-conscious  art  form.  It  is  made  up 
largely  of  play.  It  is  American  because  it  permits  the 
use  of  the  many,  it  harmonizes  the  different  kinds,  and 
it  gives  no  place  to  the  sickly,  the  sentimental,  or  the 
introspective. 

But  a  step  beyond  the  pageant  has  been  taken. 
This  has  been  done  according  to  that  native  principle 
of  self-help  and  self-expression  by  which  all  problems 
are  solved  and  all  heights  are  scaled.  After  the  external 


196     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

comes  the  internal ;  after  the  show  comes  the  message. 
After  the  accidental  beauty  of  substance  comes  the 
purposed  beauty  of  form,  the  skilled  manipulation  of 
all  machinery  to  the  depiction  of  the  rarer  zones  of  the 
spirit.  The  masque  as  an  American  thing  springs  out 
of  the  conditions  of  our  civilization,  but  rises  above 
them  to  a  purer  expression  of  our  national  spirit.  In 
it  the  poignancy  of  our  contests,  the  pathos  of  our 
defeats,  and  the  glories  of  our  victories,  have  already 
found  sporadic  appearance.  No  less  American  than 
the  pageant,  but  more  universal,  the  masque  is  coming 
to  give  new  interpretation  to  those  aspects  of  our  life 
which  in  our  hurry  of  living  we  have  heretofore  passed 
by,  the  secret  springs  of  social  conscience,  the  stern 
inspiration  of  duty  and  justice,  the  subtle  call  of 
beauty  in  common  things.  And  with  the  masque  will 
come  the  artist.  The  festival  and  the  pageant  still 
show  something  of  the  charm  of  the  unstudied  and  the 
spontaneous.  They  are  good  because  they  are  true; 
and  they  are  true  because  they  are  ourselves.  But 
they  do  not  call  for  that  unique  contribution,  without 
which  there  is  no  living  art,  the  creative  touch  of  the 
poet.  For  it  is  the  poet  who  provides  the  one  thing 
necessary  to  a  living  art,  the  vision  of  genius,  the  out 
look  upon  immensity.  His  is  the  alembic  of  the  final 
beauty.  Let  the  poets  of  the  nation  once  see  their  op 
portunity,  let  the  pageant  but  plough  the  soil,  and 
there  will  appear  in  new  forms,  not  yet  dreamed  of, 
utilizing  the  powers  of  electricity,  of  invention,  of 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     197 

music,  of  the  aeroplane,  creative  poetic  concepts 
welded  of  all  the  arts  and  illuminating  the  harmony 
of  our  American  life.  The  promise  is  at  hand.  It  has 
even,  here  and  there,  as  at  St.  Louis,  found  magnifi 
cent  expression.  The  soil  is  now  being  tilled  by  those 
who  go  before. 

One  healthy  thing  about  the  whole  movement  for  a 
remade  American  drama  is  that  it  is  beginning  out 
doors.  The  drama  always  begins  outdoors.  It  takes 
to  roofs  and  houses  only  after  the  spirit  has  surren 
dered  to  the  formula.  And  lusty  drama  always  has 
something  of  outdoors  about  it.  Only  the  extreme 
codes  of  the  comedy  of  manners  and  clinical  natural 
ism  depend  upon  the  convention  of  an  inclosed  place. 
The  Greek  tragedians  and  comedians,  Plautus  and 
Terence,  Shakespeare  and  Hans  Sachs,  Calderon  and 
Lope  de  Vega,  Goldoni  and  the  Commedia  del'  Arte, 
the  Chinese  drama  and  the  new  drama  of  South  Amer 
ica,  all  have  something  of  the  open  air  about  them. 
Their  rencontres  are  usually  in  the  open  or  in  common 
meeting-places.  One  might  easily  push  this  too  far, 
and  it  is  not  a  rock  upon  which  one  would  care  to 
break  an  argument.  But  it  is  certain  that  in  the  same 
degree  that  the  lamp  and  the  study  are  dangerous  to 
art  the  open  air  is  happy  for  art.  Whether,  as  in  Italy 
and  Spain,  the  climate  is  adapted  to  open-air  perform 
ances,  or,  as  in  England,  it  offers  little  security,  the 
beginnings  of  the  drama  are  in  either  case  under  the 
sky.  And  it  is  not  stretching  the  imagination  too  far  to 


198     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

think  that  the  beginnings  of  American  drama  will  be 
in  the  open  air.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  value 
of  our  contribution  to  civilization,  we  know  that  the 
heart  of  America  is  in  its  outdoors.  The  conquests  of 
America  have  been  open-air  conquests.  The  typical 
American  is  the  pioneer.  Our  urban  types  are  not  yet 
developed,  nor  will  they  have  provided  differentiated 
groups  for  many  years.  And  for  such  types  as  we  have 
for  the  city  the  world  has  already  created  a  drama  bet 
ter  than  any  we  can  create  by  imitation.  How  futile 
to  turn  away  from  the  veritable  impression  of  our 
American  life,  with  its  sense  of  vast  reaches  of  ter 
ritory,  its  alternating  stretches  of  prairie,  mountain, 
and  forest,  for  a  transplanted  city  sophistication.  Not 
the  city  man,  but  the  pioneer,  the  lumberman,  the 
villager,  are  the  true  types  of  American  life.  All  un 
known  to  us,  these  figures  have  found  their  way  into 
the  first  form  of  our  dramatic  art.  In  so  doing  they 
have  represented  that  eternal  tendency  by  which  life 
begins  always  under  the  sun. 

AMERICA  AND  HER  PROVINCES 

Are  we,  then,  to  believe  that  the  present  organiza 
tion  of  the  theatre  is  to  be  altogether  displaced?  By 
no  means.  Only  those  artificial  features  of  the  thea 
tre  that  fail  to  adjust  themselves  to  the  necessities  of 
the  tune  will  be  discarded.  The  general  structure  of 
theatrical  organization,  that  goes  back  to  Gibber  and 
Garrick  and  Boucicault,  will  still  be  found  useful.  Of 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     199 

all  social  institutions  the  theatre  is  most  flexible.  And 
it  will  be  through  pressure  from  without,  by  appropria 
tion  into  the  professional  and  commercial  system  of 
the  best  features  of  the  present  experimental  drama, 
that  the  organization  of  the  theatre  will  learn  its  new 
function. 

There  are  some  lessons  the  theatre  will  undoubtedly 
learn.  Chief  among  these  will  be  the  lesson  that  the  or 
ganization  of  the  American  theatre  must  regard  the 
facts  of  the  American  status,  as  distinguished  from  the 
status  of  the  foreign  countries,  England  particularly, 
from  which  its  methods  have  been  drawn.  The  geo 
graphical  problem  in  America  varies  widely  from  that 
in  England.  An  organization  that  will  serve  perfectly 
for  the  compact  islands  of  Britain  would  be  hopelessly 
inefficient  in  the  wider  expanse  of  our  territory.  Yet  we 
have  tried  to  control  our  provincial  theatre  from  the 
capital  in  New  York  in  the  way  they  have  managed 
the  British  theatre  from  London.  If  England  is  be 
coming  weary  of  the  overlordship  of  London,  how 
much  more  must  we  in  America  be  weary  of  the  the 
atrical  control  of  New  York.  One  may  reach  any  por 
tion  of  the  British  Isles  within  twenty  hours  of  Lon 
don.  When  a  play  goes  to  Seattle  from  New  York,  it 
is  almost  a  week  away  from  its  centre.  That  New 
York  does  not  satisfy  the  Pacific  Slope  is  indicated  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  here  that  the  system  of  local  man 
agement  is  strongest.  From  the  point  of  view  of  mere 
business  acumen  it  is  surprising  that  the  business  men 


200     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

of  the  theatre  have  not  seen  that  the  centre  of  man 
agement  of  the  theatre  should  be  somewhat  near  the 
centre  of  patronage.  Those  business  men  who  have 
made  fortunes  out  of  the  theatre  have  been  those  who 
have  organized  their  own  circuits,  or  those  who  have 
engaged  in  the  vaudeville  and  motion-picture  busi 
ness,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  are  more  rationally  organ 
ized  than  the  legitimate  theatre.  Some  few  have  dared 
to  fight  for  their  right  to  create  local  stock  companies 
and  provincial  chains  of  theatres.  These  it  is  of  whom 
New  York  has  had  to  become  afraid.  At  heart  drama 
must  always  be  an  art  rather  than  a  business,  but  the 
status  of  the  business  is  not  a  bad  index  to  the  health 
of  the  art.  The  business  of  the  theatre  has  not  been 
good  business  for  many  years.  It  may  not  be  a  bad 
day  for  American  drama  when  the  local  business  man 
sees  the  opportunity  of  the  theatre  and  determines 
that  at  least  a  fair  share  of  the  increment  shall  remain 
at  home. 

More  telling  than  the  business  argument  is  the  so 
cial  argument  for  the  reorganization  of  our  theatre. 
This  depends  upon  the  recognition  that  our  country 
is  not  one  homogeneous  whole,  but  is  an  aggregation 
of  separate  units  each  one  of  which  has  some  solidity 
in  itself.  For  there  is  such  a  thing  as  provincial  spirit. 
This  is  quite  another  thing  from  parochialism.  It  is  a 
compound  of  many  forces.  Among  these  are  the  com 
mon  heritage  of  race  of  many  who  settled  in  the  same 
part  of  the  country,  a  certain  uniformity  of  calling  or 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     201 

activity  involved  in  the  residence  in  the  same  district, 
and  that  undeniable  thing  called  "  local  feeling,"  in 
which  climate,  natural  objects,  and  character  of  life 
all  have  their  share.  One  does  not  need  to  go  as  far  as 
the  widely  disparate  attitudes  of  the  South  and  North 
to  find  this  distinction  based  upon  locality.  It  is  found 
between  New  York  and  California ;  and  among  neigh 
bors  of  closer  residence  it  is  found  between  California 
and  Washington,  Massachusetts  and  Maine,  Wisconsin 
and  Indiana.  Kansas  has  an  atmosphere,  a  temper 
of  her  own,  unlike  any  other.  Pennsylvania  could  not 
possibly  be  mistaken  for  Colorado,  Idaho  for  Minne 
sota.  These  distinctions  go  back  to  forces  that  are  as 
strong  as  life  itself,  for  they  are  the  forces  that  form 
and  make  life.  And  it  is  particularly  these  explicit 
distinctions  that  give  drama  its  opportunity  as  art. 
It  is  the  business  of  the  dramatist  to  discover  these  and 
to  use  them,  to  raise  them  to  symbolic  value  as  revela 
tions  of  the  essential  characteristics  of  social  life. 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  explain  that,  in  speak 
ing  for  provincialism  as  an  instrument  by  which  the 
concrete  truths  of  life  are  grasped,  one  has  no  inten 
tion  of  questioning  the  force  of  the  large  social  units 
of  the  nation  and  the  race.  It  is  the  belief  that  the 
larger  units  may  best  be  grasped  and  apprehended  by 
means  of  the  smaller  unit.  But  in  this  there  is  not  and 
there  could  not  be  any  denial  of  the  larger  unit.  The 
whole  is  not  made  smaller  when  the  part  is  appre 
hended.  In  seeing  the  district  clearly  we  do  no  injustice 


202     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

to  the  nation.  Social  thinkers  have  long  since  discarded 
the  view  that  strength  lies  in  mere  uniformity,  or  that 
a  repetition  of  the  typical  brings  stability.  National 
life  may  better  be  compared  with  an  orchestra  than 
with  the  multiplied  music  of  one  instrument.  The 
thing  that  gives  power  to  a  nation  is  that  architectonic 
quality  which  comes  from  the  fit  arrangement  of  the 
parts  in  a  stable  and  lofty  whole.  There  is  no  dispar 
agement  of  America  as  a  whole  when  we  ask  that  drama 
help  to  discover  America  through  the  medium  of  her 
provinces.  There  is  rather  a  recognition  of  that  large 
disinterestedness  which  is  the  nation  itself,  that  free 
comprehensiveness  that  lies  outside  the  power  of  any 
particular  plea,  that  comprises  all  strains  and  all  tem 
pers,  and  is  subject  to  the  control  of  none,  that  rules 
with  the  benignity  of  a  great  idea  over  the  many  par 
ticipating  groups.  The  drama  of  the  district  will  never 
be  untrue  to  the  national  life,  for  the  national  life  is 
always  implied  in  the  district. 

One  of  the  chief  traits  of  American  character,  both 
individually  and  nationally,  is  an  easy  assumption  of 
power.  In  words  we  are  braggart  enough.  But  in 
deeds  we  seldom  put  out  our  full  energy,  for  we  are  sel 
dom  called  upon  to  do  so.  And  since  there  has  not 
been  the  necessity  we  are  not  even  conscious  of  what 
our  strength  may  be.  Assuming  that  it  is  ample,  we 
proceed  with  what  we  have  to  do.  And  while  in  words 
we  are  braggarts,  in  our  actions  we  are  modest.  The 
result  is  that  we  are  not  conscious  of  the  significance 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     203 

of  the  things  that  are  being  done.  Great  deeds  are 
done  quietly,  and  almost  in  a  rough-and-ready  way. 
Our  style  has  not  caught  up  with  our  substance.  Our 
ceremonies  are  not  yet  equivalent  to  our  dignities. 
And  so  we  have  not  yet  been  greatly  deluded  with 
pride  of  the  factitious.  We  are  not  willing  to  put  out 
much  on  merely  making  a  show.  Now,  this  is  not 
humility,  or  boorishness;  perhaps  it  is  a  good-natured 
and  a  little  awkward  unconcern.  Not  having  to  draw 
on  the  complete  reserves  of  our  power,  we  have  not 
measured  its  amount.  Power  is  handled  easily  be 
cause  it  is  not  recognized  as  power.  Particularly  there 
is  lacking  the  " sense"  of  power  that  comes  from 
nicely  arranged  hierarchies  of  potentates.  When 
power  is  limited  and  administered,  it  becomes  a  seri 
ous  thing.  But  the  American  sense  of  humor,  crude  as 
it  is,  and  the  American  "common  sense"  are  our  best 
attributes.  It  will  be  a  bad  day  when  we  lose  them, 
for  then  we  shall  have  lost  our  security  of  uncon 
cern.  We  shall  become  afraid,  and  grow  watchful  and 
take  on  manners.  American  common  sense  punctures 
many  an  affectation,  not  only  for  the  other  man,  but 
for  the  American  himself. 

If  we  only  knew  it,  these  are  happy  days  in  our  na 
tional  life.  We  are  most  happy  and  most  ourselves  in 
our  lack  of  that  nationality  which  other  nations  have 
achieved  and  which  we  must  recognize  as  the  stamp  of 
their  decline.  We  shall  be  most  fortunate  if  we  can 
keep  our  strength  potential.  We  do  not  care  to  make 


204     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

it  actual.  In  spite  of  strong  temptation  we  have  not 
deluded  ourselves  with  the  cult  of  effective  armament, 
nor  have  we  held  to  the  illusion  of  the  necessity  of  sin 
to  high  civilization.  We  hate  sin  in  quite  a  bigoted  and 
middle-class  and  bland  way.  Everything  points  to  the 
fact  that  America  has  not  yet  been  discovered.  Amer 
ica  to-day  is  a  great  brooding  abstraction.  And  it  is 
best  for  us  and  for  the  world  that  it  be  so.  For  by 
this  America  is  permitted  to  stand  for  the  Idea,  quite 
frankly,  quite  concretely,  quite  securely,  and  —  best 
of  all  —  quite  unafraid  of  facts.  There  are  no  facts 
that  she  needs  to  fear  as  long  as  she  broods  in  the 
undiscovered  power  and  unbroken  peace  of  the  Idea. 
Under  her  wings  are  her  separate  districts,  very  sure 
of  themselves,  hard  at  work,  self-realizing,  like  the 
ancient  city-states.  Something  will  be  lost  that  can 
never  be  recovered  when  America  as  a  whole  means 
anything  as  concrete  as  they. 

Well,  while  America  is  but  a  majestic  abstraction, 
why  look  for  an  art  that  will  express  her  directly?  As 
America  herself  looks  to  her  provinces  for  the  word  of 
authority  that  will  represent  her  separate  services,  to 
Pittsburg,  to  the  forests,  to  the  prairies,  to  the  min 
ing  States,  to  the  Pacific  Slope,  for  their  contribution 
of  inventive  genius,  business  organization,  muscular 
men,  radical  ideas,  chivalric  sentiments,  and  impulses 
toward  art,  so  let  the  drama  achieve  the  expression  of 
the  larger  America  through  the  province.  Thus  will 
the  themes  of  American  drama  be  diversified,  and  the 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     205 

meaning  of  the  term  "  American  "  be  revealed  in  richer 
and  subtler  form. 

What  are  some  of  the  themes  that  will  be  laid  upon 
dramatic  art?  One  thing  is  certain,  dramatic  art  will 
come  home.  By  this  we  mean  that  the  drama  will 
treat  not  the  fixed  and  crude  types  of  an  outworn  art 
that  misrepresented  a  past  society,  but  the  real  ex 
periences  of  men  and  women,  the  veritable  fortunes  of 
their  lives,  the  adjustments  they  have  had  to  make  to 
a  civilization  that  has  rapidly  changed  front.  So  far 
from  saying  that  we  can  have  no  literature  until  we 
have  achieved  a  national  type,  it  would  be  more  true 
to  say  that  it  is  precisely  at  this  period  that  a  litera 
ture  should  be  expected  to  come.  Art  is  in  demand  in 
periods  of  preparation,  therefore  in  periods  of  incom 
pleteness.  When  a  nation  has  achieved  its  type,  it  has 
lost  the  need,  as  it  has  lost  the  lure,  of  art.  The  service 
art  renders  is  that  of  self-discovery  and  self-expression. 
It  is  therefore  precisely  to-day  that  we  should  be  look 
ing  for  our  literature  and  drama,  because  we  are  in 
process  of  preparation,  we  are  seeking  and  finding. 

Appropriately  enough,  since  literature  is  the  voice 
of  the  search  rather  than  of  the  achievement,  the  song 
of  the  gleam  rather  than  of  the  fixed  light,  it  is  in  these 
themes  of  preparation  that  we  find  the  strongest  and 
best  materials  of  a  new  art.  The  new  art  finds  itself 
in  the  social  discovery.  Its  experiments  are  but  re 
flexes  of  the  social  readjustments,  the  mental  queries 
and  replies  by  which  another  order  is  established.  With 


ao6     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

this  type  of  subject-matter  our  life  is  rich  to-day.  We 
are  becoming  conscious  in  our  political  thinking  of 
something  immediate  and  differentiating,  that  raises 
us  in  some  relief  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  From  such 
consciousness  the  new  art  will  come. 

THE   THEMES   OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

Among  the  many  fields  that  lie  open  to  the  drama 
tist  four  come  to  mind.  All  of  these  are  typically 
American.  They  deal  with  the  as  yet  unsolved  prob 
lems  of  our  society  —  problems  that  may  never  be 
solved,  but  may,  as  such  problems  do,  melt  away 
into  other  problems  more  pregnant  for  later  days.  All 
of  them  contain  in  little  the  tragedies  and  comedies 
that  are  reflections  of  larger  significations.  The  first 
of  these  fields  is  that  of  the  race  borderland  between 
the  Indian  and  the  white  man.  Civilization  has  seldom 
if  ever  shown  such  a  dramatic  juxtaposition  of  diverse 
races  as  that  presented  by  the  conquering  push  of  the 
white  man  over  the  hunting-grounds  of  the  red.  It 
was  no  mere  case  of  survival  of  the  fittest,  no  struggle 
between  the  Roman  and  the  Hun.  On  the  one  side 
was  a  simple  people,  too  imaginative,  too  simple,  too 
native-true,  to  be  called  savages,  both  by  their  virtues 
and  their  weaknesses  ill-prepared  to  fight  the  battle  of 
survival  against  a  stronger  foe.  On  the  other  side  was 
the  white  man,  trained  for  conquest  by  a  thousand 
years  of  city-building  and  sophistication,  pioneers  by 
thought,  woodsmen  by  intention,  fighters  by  the  cold 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     207 

and  cruel  pressure  of  moral  foresight  and  power  to 
wait.  They  won  by  knowing  that  destiny  was  on 
the  side  of  the  immaterial  rather  than  of  the  material 
forces.  It  was  not  the  Indians  that  were  killed  who 
mark  the  tragedy.  The  tragedy  came  from  the  clash 
of  two  points  of  view  and  the  suffocation  of  the  sim 
pler.  That  the  outcome  was  inevitable  makes  the 
tragedy  no  less  acute.  The  Indian  was  lost  in  a  miasma 
of  thought  he  could  not  fathom,  of  a  civilization  he 
was  unprepared  for.  All  his  bes,t  blows  fell  harmless 
against  a  breastplate  of  alien  intelligence  he  was  never 
able  to  pierce. 

Here  is  material  for  the  dramatist,  indeed,  material 
that  will  open  doors  to  truth.  But  of  this  material  we 
have  in  our  drama  next  to  nothing.  A  century  ago 
Chateaubriand  found  some  of  its  romantic  meaning, 
the  paradox  of  values,  so  to  speak,  by  which  civiliza 
tion  was  the  new  Hun,  that  came  down  and  harried  to 
extinction  a  simple  Utopia  of  unspoiled  nature.  But 
Chateaubriand's  Indian  is  no  more  veritable  than  his 
white  man.  Save  for  a  sporadic  play  or  two,  a  novel  or 
an  essay,  the  true  psychic  borderland  of  races  between 
the  Indian  and  the  Caucasian  is  untouched.  The 
Indian  is  a  lay  figure  of  melodrama;  the  white  set 
tler  is  a  nasal,  whining  boor.  A  great  spiritual  region 
lies  within  reach  of  the  hand  of  the  new  American 
dramatist. 

And  who  knows  the  pioneer?  He  still  lives  in  many 
of  the  newer  parts  of  the  country  in  healthy  and  pros- 


208     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

perous  retirement.  His  life  has  been  one  of  exercise 
with  body  and  mind  in  the  open.  He  stands  so  close  to 
many  of  us  that  we  can  hardly  interpret  him  as  yet. 
But  the  historians  of  America  are  beginning  to  know 
his  value,  and  to  see  in  him,  in  his  restlessness,  scorn 
of  limitations,  and  moral  cocksureness  the  true  type 
of  American.  In  some  ways,  and  these  the  "common- 
sense"  ways,  the  pioneer  rose  to  genius  as  a  type.  He 
knew  the  discount- value  of  the  future;  therefore  he 
had  a  humorous,  long-lived  patience;  he  was  willing 
to  wait,  even  to  take  his  payment  out  in  the  promise 
of  his  sons'  and  grandsons'  realization.  One  cannot 
study  history  without  studying  the  psychology  of 
men;  certainly  one  cannot  write  plays  without  such 
study.  When  men  people  a  wilderness  within  one  gen 
eration,  and  build  roads  and  walls  and  dykes,  and 
clear  the  fields,  in  a  political  and  social  as  well  as  a  for 
est  wilderness,  there  is  a  psychology  lying  behind  them 
worthy  of  the  study  of  the  historian  and  the  drama 
tist.  If  we  could  drop  everything  that  is  meant  by  the 
term  " American"  and  retain  the  meaning  of  " pio 
neer,"  we  should  have  lost  nothing.  The  world  would 
still  be  enriched  by  a  heritage.  It  is  a  fallacy  that 
treats  the  pioneer  as  simply  a  dealer  in  corner-lots. 
This  he  was,  and  in  this  activity  we  have  much  of  the 
meaning  of  the  term  "American."  But  he  was  more 
than  this.  Had  he  not  been  more  his  corner-lots  would 
not  have  increased  in  value.  For  it  is  no  unearned  in 
crement  that  is  now  being  collected  on  the  lives  and 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     209 

ideals  and  toil  of  the  pioneers.  The  increment  we  are 
now  gathering  comes  not  only  from  the  flocking  of  the 
hordes;  it  comes  as  well  from  the  clear  vision,  the  de 
termination,  the  concrete  poetizing  in  terms  of  new 
institutions  in  which  the  pioneers  were  adept.  The 
pioneer  was  as  apt  at  planting  new  institutions  as  he 
was  in  cutting  down  old  ones.  And  always  the  institu 
tion  he  planted  was  one  that  could  not  conceivably 
flower  in  his  own  day,  that  could  come  to  fruit  only  in 
the  time  of  his  sons  and  the  sons  of  his  sons.  Yet  he 
digged  the  soil  and  planted  the  trees.  He  had  a  whole 
some  trust  in  man's  ability  to  save  himself  by  his  own 
formulas.  If  there  was  anything  wrong  or  undone  in 
the  universe,  let  the  correction  be  but  expressed  in  an 
institution  and  things  would  come  out  right.  He  had 
not  come  to  the  truth  that  the  institution  itself  could 
express  society  only  as  it  is,  and  that  the  house  that  is 
builded  will  be  as  the  builder  himself.  But  this  plant 
ing  of  institutions  was  not  for  nothing.  For  it  was  in 
the  planting  rather  than  in  the  tree  he  planted  that 
the  pioneer  showed  himself.  The  important  thing  was 
that  the  pioneer  was  a  planter  and  a  builder.  He  be 
lieved  in  the  power  of  nature  to  make  grow;  and  he 
believed  in  the  power  of  his  own  arm  to  build  up.  He 
is  not  only  a  heritage;  he  is  a  Fact  of  American  life. 
And  the  dramatist,  searching  for  truth,  the  veritable 
truth  that  lies  near  at  hand,  will  sometime  find  the 
pioneer,  standing  close  by  his  own  hearthstone,  reg 
nant,  constructive,  materially  imaginative,  and  above 


no    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

all  a  believer.  He  will  find  him,  and  in  his  plays  he  will 
have  an  American. 

It  is  said  that  we  are  a  nation  of  city-builders.  One 
who  knows  the  country  knows  that  this  statement 
only  partly  covers  the  case;  that  the  typical  American 
spirit  lies  rather  more  near  to  the  heart  of  the  village 
than  to  the  heart  of  the  city.  The  real  spirit  of  Amer 
ica  lies  in  an  ability  to  wait  rather  than  in  impatience, 
in  a  humorous  gift  of  self-scrutiny,  and  in  a  belief  in 
homely  expedients.  These  are  not  city  attributes.  The 
cities  are  more  noisy,  but  the  villages  are  more  quietly 
tenacious.  If  there  is  one  force  that  more  than  any 
thing  else  represents  America  it  is  neighborliness,  in 
all  the  homespun  value  of  the  term.  And  neighborli 
ness  is  an  attribute  of  village  life.  Neighborliness  is 
the  product  of  pioneer  days.  It  is  a  quality  as  native 
and  simple  as  the  American  backgrounds.  It  has  no 
ethical  or  hortatory  or  mawkish  value.  It  is  an  out 
growth  of  the  days  when  men  were  drawn  together  by 
common  interest  against  the  loneliness  of  their  lives. 
In  the  world  in  which  they  lived  there  was  plenty  of 
everything  save  neighbors.  To  buy  companionship 
they  were  free  with  material  possessions.  This  devel 
oped  a  hospitality,  a  grace  in  giving,  and  an  easy  com 
municativeness. 

Neighborliness  means  not  only  the  development  of 
the  virtues  of  society.  Neighborliness  is  no  panacea; 
it  never  rises  higher  than  humanity  itself.  But  it  does 
not  pervert  humanity;  it  shows  men  as  they  are. 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     211 

Neighborliness  permits  the  expression  of  the  simpler 
vices  as  well  as  the  simpler  virtues.  In  the  fences  and 
the  cliques,  the  jealousies  and  the  gossip,  the  minding- 
of-everybody's-business  of  the  small  town,  the  draw 
backs  of  village  life  are  seen.  But,  at  any  rate,  these 
are  natural  and  human  drawbacks,  they  are  not  the 
drawbacks  of  the  inverted  and  attenuated  life  of  the 
city.  They  are  not  laid  over  with  the  pressure  of 
the  city  to  disguise  and  conceal  their  true  character 
under  a  pretense  of  social  necessity  or  sophistication. 
And  so  we  would  look  for  one  type  of  the  American 
play  in  the  village.  In  the  village  there  are  people 
enough  to  reveal  the  true  characteristics  of  our  life, 
and  not  so  many  that  these  characteristics  are  crushed 
by  weight  of  numbers.  In  the  village  there  is  a  close 
ness  to  the  background,  a  fidelity  to  type  that  the 
city  cannot  show.  Where  each  man  has  his  yard,  sur 
rounded  with  a  fence  which  marks  his  precincts  from 
those  of  his  neighbor,  where  part  of  the  day's  work  is 
the  tending  of  the  garden,  perhaps  of  the  cow,  horse, 
or  chickens,  the  structure  of  life  is  built  on  a  base  set 
in  the  instinctive  and  necessary.  America  has  not  yet 
risen  above  an  identification  with  these  instinctive 
supports  of  living.  In  spite  of  our  boasted  "civiliza 
tion  of  expedients,"  it  has  been  the  province  of  Amer 
ica  to  simplify  relationships  by  taking  them  back  to 
the  lowest  terms,  by  making  them  inhere  in  homely 
things.  Our  greatest  genius  in  the  handling  of  subtle 
problems  has  risen  from  our  ability  to  handle  them 


212     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

blandly  and  ingenuously.  We  still  stand  for  the  "rule 
of  thumb,"  and  it  remains  to  be  seen,  after  efficiency 
has  had  its  say,  organization  has  done  its  worst,  system 
has  built  its  mental  jails,  if  there  are  any  better  rules 
than  the  rules  of  thumb  by  which  healthy  men  and 
women  of  an  ambitious  and  fertile  stock  can  build 
their  houses  for  future  generations.  For  this  pleasing 
concreteness,  this  identification  of  destiny  with  the 
job  in  hand,  this  willingness  to  wait  and  insistence  on 
comfort  while  waiting,  one  has  but  to  look  to  the  vil 
lages.  The  American  village  is  Americanism  in  its 
simplest  form,  the  form  that  keeps  on  quietly  working 
after  the  noisy  processes  of  change  have  fallen  back 
from  weariness.  There  is  promise  in  the  fact  that 
writers  are  now  discovering  the  effectiveness  for  drama 
of  the  quaint  characters  and  backgrounds  of  villages. 
In  this  the  pageant  has  had  a  significant  place,  for  the 
villages  even  more  than  the  cities  have  answered  to 
the  call  of  the  past  in  pageantry.  All  over  the  country 
authors  are  turning  from  the  city  to  the  quiet  of  the 
village  for  repose  in  which  to  write.  Soon  they  will 
discover  the  life  at  their  doors  in  its  deeper  meaning, 
and  in  place  of  the  dialect  story  peopled  with  yokels 
we  shall  have  the  stories  of  the  real  Americans  who 
have  been  with  us  all  along,  and  have  been  overlooked 
for  a  while  in  the  clatter  of  more  noisy  affairs. 

While  the  village  holds  much  of  the  heart  of  Amer 
ica,  the  city  is  a  fact  which  we  could  not  ignore  if  we 
would,  though  with  the  city  there  enters  into  the  theme 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     213 

of  our  new  art  the  first  note  of  uncertainty.  This  is  an 
uncertainty  that  comes  from  the  status  of  city  life  it 
self  and  all  it  promises  and  threatens  for  the  future. 
Heretofore  we  have  been  dealing  with  forces,  and 
forces  in  art  are  always  promises ;  but  with  the  city  we 
come  to  problems,  and  problems  in  art  mean  inquir 
ies,  and  notes  of  restlessness,  and  imperious  calls  for 
change,  and  didactic  purpose.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
in  the  end  the  lasting  art  is  that  of  the  sure  and  un 
questioning  voice.  This  voice  is  neither  strident,  nor 
censorious,  nor  nervous,  nor  morbid ;  it  is  not  even 
aware  of  itself.  The  one  true  quality  in  the  voice, 
whether  it  be  that  of  Homer  or  Shakespeare,  the 
maker  of  ballads  or  of  the  latest  social  festival,  is  cer 
tainty  that  needs  no  support  and  brooks  no  question. 
Is  there,  then,  no  place  in  art  for  the  weary  and  dis 
tracted;  no  art  that  typifies  the  closed  door,  or  the 
outlook  on  dubious  prospects?  Upon  the  answer  to 
this  will  depend  the  judgment  that  we  make  on  much 
contemporary  drama,  for  this  is  the  characteristic  art 
of  the  city.  With  the  artists  of  the  old  world,  who  have 
hesitated  between  the  calls  of  their  citizenship  and  the 
call  of  the  still  small  voice  of  beauty,  American  art 
ists  have  tended  toward  the  values  of  the  world's  mar 
ket-places.  Art  has  come  to  be  of  the  city;  it  has  con 
cerned  itself  with  contending  issues;  it  has  become 
restless,  serviceable,  efficient,  eugenic.  We  who  live 
in  the  midst  of  the  imperious  claims  of  the  city  cannot 
altogether  close  our  ears  to  them,  though  what  their 


214    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

ultimate  meaning  may  be  for  art  no  one  ventures  even 
to  guess. 

There  is  one  function  that  our  cities  are  serving  that 
seems  to  symbolize  one  of  the  largest  meanings  of  the 
American  democracy.  The  city  has  become  the  meet 
ing-place  and  the  welding-place  of  peoples  of  different 
races.  It  has  been  the  fortune  of  America  as  a  whole 
to  create  a  new  people  out  of  the  representatives  of 
many  older  peoples.  And  to-day  it  is  in  the  cities  that 
the  process  of  creation,  of  amalgamation,  is  centred. 
This  process  of  interchange  and  readjustment  is  one  of 
the  eternal  phenomena,  and  at  the  same  time  one  of 
the  mysteries,  of  human  nature.  To  the  dramatist  it 
comes  in  two  forms.  To  one  dramatist,  upon  whose 
thinking  the  formulas  of  positivism  and  responsibility 
have  been  impressed,  it  comes  as  a  problem  of  awful 
import,  testing  the  resources  of  his  mind  and  leading 
him  to  pessimism  upon  the  theory  that  any  problem 
that  he  cannot  solve  is  without  solution.  This  is  the 
man  who  goes  to  the  sociologist  and  the  political 
scientist,  and,  thinking  that  the  data  they  have  al 
ready  gathered  is  adequate  to  an  understanding  of 
man,  proceeds  to  plot  the  curve  of  the  future  by  the 
insufficient  records  of  the  past.  To  the  other  drama 
tist  the  eternal  restless  interplay  of  man  upon  the 
earth  has  its  value  as  an  unsolved  and  therefore  ma 
jestic  phenomenon,  one  of  the  greatest  phenomena  of 
the  world,  containing  within  it  the  mystery  not  only 
of  origins,  but  of  destiny,  and  the  profound  specula- 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     215 

tions  of  association  and  brotherhood  and  love.  In 
retaining  its  mystery  to  him  this  phenomenon  still 
retains  its  magnitudes.  He  has  no  vaunting  desire  to 
usurp  great  places  or  to  hasten  deliberate  processes. 
He  recognizes  that  the  laws  of  the  spirit  are  still  all- 
powerful,  and  that  what  the  reason  cannot  compre 
hend  is  still  within  the  grasp  of  the  simpler  spirit.  As 
a  spiritual  thing  the  mingling  of  the  races  comes  to 
him,  not  as  a  problem  with  which,  weak -handed  as 
he  is,  he  is  expected  to  cope. 

To  the  dramatist  who  is  willing  to  take  the  city  as 
a  complex  of  mysterious  forces  of  life  it  looms  up  in 
tremendous  possibilities.  In  this  nucleus  are  all  the 
possibilities  of  experiment,  perhaps  even  the  achieve 
ment,  of  that  thing  called  "  understanding  "  among 
men.  Here  in  small  compass  are  the  possibilities  of 
unity  without  conformity,  of  the  cultivation  of  the  art 
of  the  individual  life  and  the  orchestration  of  men. 
The  city  is  a  rich  mine  for  the  dramatist  who  views  it 
reverently.  The  world  has  never  yet  seen  the  city  in 
its  completeness.  But  to-day  we  are  more  nearly  ready 
to  accept  the  meaning  of  the  city  than  we  have  ever 
been.  Both  on  the  side  of  thought  and  of  material 
interchange  we  are  ready  for  the  message  of  the  cities. 
Belief  in  the  fluidity  of  ideas  and  the  unity  of  the 
primary  spirits  of  men  was  never  so  near  acceptance 
as  it  is  to-day.  And  on  the  material  side  the  last  two 
generations  have  brought  to  realization  quick  inter 
changes  between  nation  and  nation  that  have  not 


2i 6     CASE  Of  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

before  been  possible.  The  ocean  steamship,  the  cable, 
free  immigration,  free  institutions,  the  universal  fran 
chise,  free  education,  and  free  speech  are  electric  amal 
gamators.  They  are  the  fuel  of  that  melting-pot  of 
which  Zangwill  has  written  with  such  eloquence. 
America  is  the  melting-pot,  and  in  the  cities  the  fur 
nace  is  hottest.  What  will  the  outcome  be,  for  races, 
for  men,  for  spirituality,  for  justice,  for  revealed 
truth?  The  answer  is  larger  than  America. 

And  when  the  dramatists  come  to  make  this  answer 
they  will  look  to  the  cities  for  this  miracle  of  races. 
Certainly  it  is  not  as  a  problem  that  it  will  present  it 
self  to  them,  but  as  an  epic  Fact,  a  fact  to  take  its 
place  beside  the  moving  of  the  Children  of  Israel,  the 
growth  of  Christianity,  and  the  Crusades.  The  drama 
tist  who  represents  the  life  of  the  American  city  has 
not  before  him  a  debased  civilization  stumbling  to  its 
decline.  It  is  a  new  civilization  preparing  the  materials 
of  to-morrow.  And  this  dramatist  will  have  a  theme 
worthy  of  any  man's  metal.  In  representing  America 
he  will  be  representing  the  larger  magnitudes  by  which 
America  may  epitomize  the  modern  world.  It  will 
not  be  the  factitious  and  the  artificial,  the  nerv 
ous  and  the  unstable,  the  show  instead  of  the  spirit, 
the  body  instead  of  the  mind;  it  will  be  the  large 
struggle  drawn  to  focus  by  which  the  civilization  in 
which  we  are  now  living  may  be  known  to  after 
times. 

America  is  serving  two  functions,  and  the  dramatist 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     217 

of  the  city  should  know  this.  At  heart  she  is  conserva 
tive  and  sure.  And  then  there  are  places  on  her  surface 
at  which  sharp  contests  take  place,  with  quick,  bitter 
struggles,  and  soul-trying  adjustments  of  unfriendly 
elements.  These  struggles  are  all  the  safer  and  all 
the  sooner  over  because  of  the  sure  steadiness  of  the 
substructure  that  will  not  be  shaken  by  surface  irri 
tation  or  be  put  out  of  its  way.  The  struggle  takes 
place,  it  is  sharp  and  swift,  and  the  contending  par 
ties,  isolated  for  a  moment  in  high  relief,  fighting  as 
they  think  the  fight  of  the  ages,  sink  back  to  the  level 
again,  and  are  absorbed  into  Americanism.  But  both 
the  struggle  and  the  peace  are  American,  and  in  both 
America  is  fulfilling  her  function.  We  can  afford  con 
tests  because  we  can  afford  to  wait.  We  can  stand 
surface  readjustment  because  the  heart  is  sure.  It  is 
no  mere  phrase  that  speaks  of  America  as  the  "New 
World. "  For  all  practical  purposes  the  discovery  of 
America  was  the  discovery  of  a  new  planet.  With 
America  men  were  able  to  cut  themselves  off  from 
their  past  and  to  assume  responsibility  for  their  future. 
A  new  race  now  begins  based  upon  all  that  had  been 
gained  before  and  fortified  by  self-selection.  It  is  the 
primary  article  of  our  faith  that  the  heart  of  the  nation 
is  sound  and  is  not  vexed  with  problems.  The  art  of 
the  nation  will  be  sound  too,  and  need  not  be  fretted 
with  anxious  fears.  If  we  are  called  upon  to  continue 
to  test  the  metal  of  the  world  in  our  crucible,  we  can 
do  that  too.  We  shall  not  be  afraid  that  our  metal 


a  1 8     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

shall  run  to  dross.  The  art  of  America  will  be  the  art 
not  of  problems  but  of  possibilities.  We  will  not  call 
upon  our  art  to  carry  our  burdens,  and  to  whine  with 
our  discontents,  but  to  discover  us  and  reveal  us  for 
what  we  are. 

With  such  materials  as  these,  how  is  a  dramatic  art 
to  be  made?  There  will  be  little  satisfaction  in  at 
tempting  to  express  it  in  the  old  forms  and  the  old 
technique.  For  the  substance  of  American  drama  is 
going  to  demand  a  style  of  its  own,  and  the  new  ma 
terials  will  supply  their  own  technique.  This  is  said  in 
no  spirit  of  reform  or  iconoclasm.  It  is  a  conclusion 
based  upon  the  observation  of  dramatic  art  under  all 
circumstances,  an  observation  that  convinces  one  that 
form  is  of  the  very  substance  of  dramatic  art,  and  that 
the  change  of  the  one  involves  the  change  of  the  other. 
Certainly  the  form  of  the  new  American  drama  will 
not  be  based  upon  the  old  reactions  of  an  age  of  chiv 
alry,  or  on  the  restless  anarchy  of  the  breaking-up  of 
the  age  of  European  castes.  And  it  may  lack  some  of 
the  easy  divisions  and  categories  by  which  the  clashes 
of  the  older  drama  were  represented.  As  society  be 
comes  more  balanced  and  coherent,  the  dramatist 
loses  the  easy  formulas  by  which  the  play  has  been 
made.  Instead  of  these  the  American  dramatist  will 
have  to  discover  newer  alignments,  out  of  which  will 
come  a  new  technique. 

There  would  be  no  value  in  attempting  to  state  the 
formula  of  the  new  technique.  If  we  state  its  source  and 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     219 

the  motive  that  impels  it,  we  will  have  done  enough 
to  indicate  what  its  form  must  be.  The  motive  may  be 
the  motive  of  the  normal  American  village,  expressed 
in  the  temper  of  the  pioneer  spirit.  The  cohering  power 
of  the  play  will  lie  in  simple  neighborliness,  in  crude 
hanging  together;  the  temper  of  the  play  will  be  that 
laconic  optimism,  that  sturdy  imaginativeness  that  has 
marked  the  first  settlers.  As  to  whether  the  play  will  be 
long  or  short,  plastic  or  ideal  or  intellectual,  presented 
in  large  theatres  or  small,  through  comedy  or  tragedy, 
be  broken  into  short  acts  and  scenes  or  drawn  out 
in  a  single  growing  unit,  whether  the  play  will  be 
formalized  in  structure  or  rough  and  ready,  I  do  not 
venture  to  suggest,  because  I  do  not  know.  These 
are  matters  of  clothing  in  which  styles  change  from 
time  to  time  without  touching  the  steady  course  of 
events. 

Lest  it  be  thought  that  the  purpose  of  this  book,  and 
particularly  of  this  chapter,  is  the  foretelling  of  future 
events,  a  final  word  of  explanation  may  be  permitted. 
Much  that  passes  as  prophecy  is  a  bootless  occupation. 
But  if  by  prophecy  is  meant  the  study  of  present  tend 
encies,  to  discover  their  outcome  in  the  light  of  their 
principles  and  past  history,  then  we  are  willing  to  ac 
cept  the  task  of  prophecy.  For  there  is  no  under 
taking  so  thoroughly  fundamental  as  this.  We  have 
thought  that  we  could  find  in  the  study  of  the  present 
constitution  of  American  society  and  of  the  organiza- 


220    CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

tion  of  the  American  theatre  the  faults  of  the  relation 
ship  between  the  two.  Mutually  coexisting  entities, 
one  of  which  implies  and  involves  the  other,  require 
this  dual  investigation.  We  have  found  many  points 
at  which  the  theatre  fails  to  represent  society;  many 
points  at  which  society  fails  to  support  the  theatre. 
In  such  a  case  as  this  the  fault  is  not  of  the  one  or 
the  other.  It  is  of  the  adjustment  and  relationship  of 
the  two. 

In  addition  we  have  discovered  certain  demands 
on  the  part  of  society  that  are  not  satisfied  by  the 
theatre,  and  we  have  found  that  society  is  setting  up 
processes  to  correct  the  faults  and  shortcomings  of  the 
theatre.  In  discovering  social  needs  and  demands  we 
are  discovering  demands  that  in  the  course  of  nature 
must  and  will  be  satisfied.  This  is  all  that  prophecy 
can  safely  do  at  any  time.  And  if  this  be  prophecy, 
then  certainly  prophecy  has  been  elevated  to  a  posi 
tion  among  the  sciences. 

For  we  have  here  no  argument  or  dream  or  promise 
of  a  bright  but  hardly  to  be  realized  future.  No  dra 
matic  millennium  lies  just  around  the  corner.  If  there 
has  been  read  into  this  book  any  such  promise,  the 
author  has  failed  to  state  his  meaning.  What  has  been 
meant  is  that  an  American  drama  must  come  in  the 
nature  of  things;  that  processes  are  clearly  discernible 
and  at  work  that  must  bring  it.  No  claim  is  made  that 
the  American  drama  when  it  arrives  will  save  the 
world,  or  dispense  with  further  problems  of  a  material 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     221 

and  spiritual  nature.  It  will  play  the  part  it  is  called 
upon  by  its  nature  to  play,  the  part  for  which  it  is  cre 
ated.  If  it  is  said  that  never  before  has  an  art  era  been 
promised  with  such  bold  assurance,  the  answer  may  be 
made  that  heretofore  social  processes  have  not  been 
studied  in  the  way  in  which  they  are  now  studied, 
have  not,  indeed,  been  held  to  be  subject  to  inductive 
reasoning.  To-day  we  do  not  question  that  man  is 
governed  by  laws  involved  in  his  own  constitution. 
Our  only  limitations,  great  enough  to  be  sure,  are  the 
limitations  of  the  understanding  and  knowledge  of 
these  laws. 

And  there  is  one  further  word.  A  nation  cannot 
build  a  palace  of  art  to  live  in  any  more  than  can  a 
man.  If  art  is  to  come,  it  must  come  not  as  a  purposed 
creation  apart  from  the  fundamental  motives  of  life, 
in  which  are  spent  only  the  leisure  and  the  detached 
hours;  it  must  come  as  a  part  of  the  body  of  society,  as 
the  outgrowth  of  the  inherent  processes  of  events;  and 
it  must  be  a  house  for  the  whole  family,  in  which  are 
carried  forward  all  the  activities  of  men.  The  idea  of 
the  palace  of  art  has  bred  many  hypocrisies  and  affec 
tations.  These  are  serious  enough  in  old  nations  in 
which  the  arts  are  venerable.  This  idea  may  mean 
schools  of  art,  and  academies  of  styles,  cults,  and 
isms,  and  affectations,  the  parasites  and  the  decadent 
growths  of  art.  In  old  societies  they  are  barnacles 
of  established  art;  they  do  not  dim  the  lustre  of  real 
achievement.  But  in  new  countries  that  have  still  to 


222     CASE  OF  AMERICAN  DRAMA 

discover  themselves  they  are  more  serious  than  this. 
With  us  they  are  the  false  show  that  by  many  is  ac 
cepted  as  the  true  thing;  they  are  works  of  the  imita 
tors  and  dilettantes  who  coin  a  nice  stipend  of  fame 
from  their  spurious  metal.  They  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  quieter  workman  who  is  unused  to  the  systems  of 
exploitation;  and  flatter  the  senses  of  the  inexpert  by 
glitter  and  fine  phrases.  And  in  the  more  judicial- 
minded  they  breed  a  contempt  for  all  that  goes  under 
the  name  of  art. 

Art  is  not  of  this  sort.  It  is  delicate,  but  it  is  hardy. 
It  hides  its  head,  but  it  has  deep  roots.  It  deals  with 
the  things  of  the  spirit,  but  it  has  a  firm  grip  on  the 
things  of  the  flesh.  It  is  of  the  time  and  of  the  place. 
The  true  art  is  not  ashamed  of  its  paternity.  We  will 
know  our  art  when  it  comes  by  the  fact  that  it  is 
American  through  and  through.  It  is  American  in  no 
apologetic  mood,  as  one  should  say,  "better  things  are 
to  follow,"  or,  "it  is  as  good  as  could  be  expected  under 
the  circumstances,"  or,  "like  parent  like  child";  but 
with  a  sane  pride,  a  healthy  self- veneration  that  conies 
from  a  knowledge  of  the  truth  and  of  the  instruments 
with  which  one  searches  for  truth,  of  one  who  knows 
that  he  works  with  his  full  strength,  sleeps  deeply,  and 
awakes  glad  of  a  new  day. 

The  American  art  will  not  be  ashamed  of  the  dollar, 
or  be  ashamed  of  a  certain  frank  moral  opportunism 
which  takes  the  tasks  of  each  day  and  does  them  with 
the  strength  of  the  day,  or  ashamed  (and  still  not 


THE  PROMISE  OF  A  DRAMA     223 

proud)  of  a  certain  roughness  and  largeness  of  hand 
clasp,  or  ashamed  of  something  of  palpability  in  our 
sentiment  and  humor.  These  things  are  American, 
for  they  are  of  our  own  nature.  May  we  expect  plays 
to  come  of  them?  Let  us  try  and  see. 


THE  END 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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ymw 


JAN    ai  1944 
•ty          FFR   21  1944 


-FE&-* 


FIB 


1  ">    IN  STACKS 


_VU 


i  I?  1960 


MAY  111 


LD 


JC   (7853 


330408 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  .LIBRARY 


